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Started in 1987 by Sperling and several of his UC Davis colleagues, the Institute of Transportation Studies became a formal research unit in 1991. Five years later, the institute now administers $6 million in grants and contracts, employs 100 graduate, undergraduate and faculty researchers, and produces about 80 papers and reports a year, according to the institute's latest annual report.
In the kind of interdisciplinary research often celebrated at UC Davis, the institute fosters collaboration among economists, engineers, psychologists, anthropologists, ecologists and others. Research projects tend to cluster under a number of subcategories: energy and environmental analysis, transportation economics, travel behavior analysis, hybrid and electric drive vehicles, transit services, and intelligent transportation systems.
The 1990s has been a difficult decade for an institute to start up and grow. Cuts in state higher education funding combined with reduced federal research and development money have left long-established research groups scrambling for dollars to support graduate students and other researchers.
For the fledgling institute's researchers, defining new areas of study and looking in provocative ways at transportation problems have meant finding diverse and nontraditional sources of funding. This year, the institute hired development officer Joseph Krovoza to help raise more funds. Increasingly, research groups on campus and across the country are finding themselves similarly looking for private funding to replace reduced public research dollars.
In the case of Sperling, the institute's high-profile director, the funding issue is further complicated by that fact that he studies and publicly discusses contentious issues.
"It's important for academics to participate in the policy process in a public way because academics are among the few people in society who are independent, credible and knowledgeable," he says. "We have a real responsibility, because most of the policy debates have become so adversarial and polarized that the scientific underpinnings are often ignored or lost."
Early in his career, Sperling learned the cost of speaking out. He was one of the few respected independent analysts of transportation energy issues to refute the exaggerated claims of methanol's advantage as an alternative to gasoline. His words, he soon found out, erased any hope of funding from several key government agencies that advocated methanol.
But Sperling has learned there will always be someone in a company or government agency willing to fund credible, well-reputed research. The secret, Sperling says, is to speak from a strong research base.
"In most cases, there are two well-funded sides to every issue," he says. In the case of methanol, another source was willing to fund the research road Sperling wanted to travel.
Recently, Sperling testified before the U.S. Congress, criticizing the management of a major advanced technology research partnership between the government and the "big three" automakers (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler). A representative from Toyota, a company excluded from the partnership, was impressed that Sperling stood up to such powerful transportation forces and expressed interest in supporting the institute.
Sperling seems particularly adept at maintaining his and the institute's reputation, research integrity and academic credibility with funding from unusual bedfellows.
For example, despite the institute's strong research findings favoring electric cars and Sperling's support of continued state zero-emission mandates, the institute counts Atlantic Richfield Co., Chevron Research and Technology Co., Exxon USA, Daimler-Benz, Honda and Nissan among its corporate sponsors.
Although electric cars are a major threat to the future of the internal combustion engine, Daimler-Benz and Nissan are involved with the institute's projects. And despite accepting money from the oil companies and auto-makers, the institute hosts extended sabbatical visits of prominent environmental activists from such groups as the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Especially in the electric car debate, the UC Davis institute plays a major role, and even people who might not believe in an electric car future want to have as much insight and some influence in such an important discussion.
"UC Davis has filled a certain niche: People look to it for balanced thought," says Terry Day, who assesses short- and long-term U.S. energy and oil supply and demand for Exxon. "Sperling is willing to incorporate other opinions, and he's not afraid to take a stand on issues he believes in."
There are other drawbacks to such a public role. Sperling's been booed at conferences for oil economists and environmental advocates. He's been heckled at public hearings. He has received angry handwritten letters from people who read his widely distributed editorial in their small town newspaper. Two prominent people--an irate oil company executive and an entrepreneur selling a water-alcohol fuel--called the chancellor to ask for Sperling's resignation.
But there are benefits, as well. He can see his research making a difference. His book, Future Drive, a discussion of future car technologies, has been cited frequently in public meetings and media coverage of the public policy debate. This spring, he received a Distinguished Public Service Award from his UC Davis colleagues. And once in a while, he'll receive a heartwarming letter of support like this one from a musician with a 13-year-old son:
"[Young people] can be totally wild, crazy, even out-of-control, petty thugs, gang members, substance abusers, you name it, but boy, don't use Styrofoam around them once they learn about how it's killing sea life or affecting the ozone layer! This generation will embrace electric cars with a decisiveness that will be unimaginable to those stuck-in-their-thinking-Big-3-automaker types, and they are going to be left in the dust when it happens."
