After a 2004 funding gap forced the layoff of several key physical rehab researchers, UB's Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange is back online.
Sen. Charles Schumer announced last week that the center, better known by CIRRIE, was awarded a five-year grant totaling $2.5 million from the U.S. Department of Education to support disability and rehabilitation research. The grant allows CIRRIE to make progress in its goal of creating a database that connects researchers all over the world with each other.
UB officials said the grant is in response to the mounting need for international communication amongst researchers and will both expand groundbreaking treatments worldwide, and solidify UB's reputation as a leading research university.
"The CIRRIE works to promote cultural competency in the field of disability rehabilitation," said John H. Stone, clinical associate professor of rehabilitation sciences. "With that in mind, one of our primary tasks is to collect this research information from other countries and disseminate via a searchable database."
Government funding has supported such work since 1999, funding innovative work being completed that is beneficial for those overcoming the challenges of disabilities, according to Stone.
Many students said the benefits are a two-way road.
"The government has invested its resources in our campus and we should appreciate this," said Michael Pick, a junior accounting major. "By taking advantage of this, we can emerge as a top research institute giving us the capabilities to benefit those who are in great need around the world."
CIRRIE is a part of UB's 2-year-old School of Public Health and Health Professions, but is not only focused on the science of physical rehabilitation.
CIRRIE's goal is to connect researchers, allowing them to exchange ideas, and even people. Travel grants that allow researchers of different nations to meet are organized primarily by CIRRIE. Such visits allow researchers to meet face to face so that they can pool ideas more effectively.
The center is also working to ease the cultural disparity within disability rehabilitation in order to create a more effective way to deal with these conditions. Bridging the cultural gap, methods to integrate immigrants from this field will be a priority, Stone said.
This grant will also allow the creation of a searchable database, so that researchers across the globe will have access to the works of others. Such exchanges will enhance the distribution and progression of disability advancements, according to Stone.
Kevin Krautsak, a freshman biomedical sciences major, said the grant bodes well for future discoveries.
"The whole point of research is to share. If we learn something new, it is our obligation to give it out to others so we can better a wider range of people," Krautsak said.
Other students, like Annie Shao, a junior geology major, said our country could also be missing out on something without open communication with other nations.
"A new innovation could be discovered somewhere else far, far away," said Shao. "Individually, we can only spend so much money and where would we be without such a system in place?"
Stone said the infusion of new funds makes CIRRIE's research viable to facility many new developments in the physical rehabilitation field.
"Last year the team was coasting on what little funds we had left, but there's a new surge of research to come," Stone said.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
