US National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) Launched. (September 2, 2008)

With US$16 million over five years (US$11 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and US$5 million from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) will be housed at the University of Tennessee with the aim of doing basic research rather than providing rapid-response advice on vaccination or culling in response to a disease outbreak. Its annual operating budget is anticipated to be US$5 million.

Samuel Scheiner, programme director in the NSF's division of environmental biology told NatureNews: "A whole series of events has raised concerns within the federal government that this is something we need to be aware of," while Tam Garland, branch chief for agricultural security at the DHS pointed out, "Modelling is a decision tool; what we're supporting with this centre is fundamental research and growing the next generation of researchers," and added that a long-term goal is to be able to distinguish natural outbreaks from possible deliberate release.

NIMBioS' strategic plan is to have "about a dozen postdoctoral positions, and on-going working groups bringing together 8–15 researchers to study a particular problem in a series of two or three approximately week-long meetings spread over a couple of years".

"Other institutes like this have had a tremendous global impact," Alan Hastings, a theoretical ecologist at the University of California, Davis told NatureNews. Work at the NCEAS has been important in giving applied ecology a scientific underpinning, such as in the design of marine reserves, he says. "The NCEAS changed the way people do ecology."

Wolfgang Alt, a theoretical biologist at the University of Bonn, Germany, and president of the European Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology made the observation that mathematical biology is growing worldwide, but that European groups tend to be "dispersed and specialized," and Nanako Shigesada, a theoretical ecologist at Doshisha University in Kyoto and president of the Japanese Society for Mathematical Biology believes that "having a research institute covering all areas of mathematical biology, including ecology, evolution, developmental and cellular and subcellular processes is very important,"

Professor Peter Hall, president of the Australian Mathematical Society points to the fact: The US already has a significant number of research centres in the mathematical sciences. Those that can broadly be described as national include:

AIM (American Institute of Mathematics, Palo Alto)
IMA (Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, Minneapolis -- NSF funded)
IPAM (Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA -- NSF funded)
MSRI (Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley -- NSF funded)
NISS (National Institute of Statistical Sciences, North Carolina)
SAMSI (Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute -- NSF funded)
Banff International Research Station (partly NSF funded)

The US, perhaps more than any other nation, has appreciated that research centres in the mathematical sciences are vital to research excellence in that field. The centres contribute substantially to America's international leadership in the mathematical sciences.

The new centre, The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), will continue this development, and will enhance and exploit the increasingly close cooperation between the mathematical sciences and biology. Like most of the other research centres, NIMBioS will be significantly funded by the NSF -- the Foundation will supply almost 70% of funding, with the remainder coming from the Department of Homeland Security. NIMBioS will contribute still further to US leadership in mathematics and statistics

Meanwhile, in Australia we are still seeking support for a single research institute in the mathematical sciences. The fledgling Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) is teetering on a knife edge between survival and disappearance, and relies very heavily on support from its members (including most of the research mathematics departments in Australian universities).

With a properly funded mathematics research institute we could do much to reverse the reduction of the mathematical sciences in Australia, which has declined by between 30% and 40% (in terms of researchers in mathematics and statistics) over the last 12 years.

Indeed, a review of the mathematical sciences 18 months ago, partly funded by the federal government, called on the government to "provide funding for AMSI that supports its critical role in providing national infrastructure  for national and international collaboration."