BOISE, Idaho (KIFI) – The University of Idaho and the Idaho National Lab (INL) are expanding their long-term partnership toward developing the future of research in the Gem state.
Today both groups signed a five-year strategic understanding for premier education and research, or ‘SUPER’ agreement.
U of I’s nuclear engineering program has partnered with the INL since 1954. The expanded partnership means that university faculty can work with the INL on projects for years to come.
“We have a long history of educating employees and doing collaborative research with our faculty and with INL researchers,” U of I Idaho Falls campus center executive officer Marc Skinner told Local News 8. “The hope is that this (agreement), kind of takes it to a new level.”
The partnership’s focus will be developing and working on key projects like nuclear power and national and cyber security. Skinner tells us one exciting project researchers are developing is protecting regional power grids from outside intervention.
“We have some real expertise both in Idaho Falls and on the Moscow campus in power systems and cybersecurity. We have a research lab on our campus that has a lot of donated equipment from the industry, and they’re trying to replicate the power grid, and then they try to figure out how they’re going to work through potential hacks or cybersecurity breaches,” says Skinner. “That is a concern all across the world and certainly in our nation and our state.”
In addition, Skinner believes the partnership will benefit the students attending the University and its satellite campus.
“We recruit graduate students, really, from all over the world who want to come to a place where they can have high-quality interactions with research faculty, but also be right next door to a national lab that’s doing all this great research,” said Skinner. “And so our graduate students, especially master’s and PhD students, are going to benefit so much from this.”
