Birmingham, Alabama, is, by its own admission, not the likeliest of venues for full membership of the US research elite. But from a standing start in the 1960s, its university has become a significant magnet for research funds and the biggest employer in the state.
The university was opened as an urban renewal project for a blighted city. In the intervening period, resources have been pumped in by both local and federal government. There has been no attempt to build strength across the full range of academic disciplines. The result is a billion-dollar research university in the biomedical sciences.
There are parallels in other countries. Dundee, for example. There too, the decision to concentrate on biomedical science has been sustained and is highly lucrative, and with the human genome coming on stream, it is set to stay so.
As the American Association for the Advancement of Science meets next week just up the road from Silicon Valley and the universities that have nurtured it, it would be tempting to assume that big science and high-technology can only flourish in areas where critical mass is available. What Alabama shows is that long-term investment can create economic revival in downtrodden areas far away from big-name academic centres. Those concerned with regional and urban regeneration please note.