Orion Crest, Series_1

Chapter 158: The beginning of the Gordon Institute

　　The day after the meeting with Lewis, Orion received a call from his secretary, Yves.

　　He drove Orion to the side of the High-Tech Development Park," Yves smiled and made a gesture of invitation, "Professor Orion, this way please."

　　After stopping the car, Yves took out a map with circles drawn on it, pointed to the places marked on it and said to Orion.

　　"This is the blueprint of the High-Tech Development Zone, the first phase of the project has already been completed, and the second phase will also be completed within a year. Because the policy has only just come out, there are only 11 research units in the entire development zone that have finished moving in, and overall, there is still a lot of unused space."

　　"There are several nice office buildings in locations not far from the metro station that are still unoccupied, so if there is somewhere you have your eye on, you can let me know."

　　Orion shook his head and said, "The nanomaterial experiments I'm doing require a high degree of precision, the construction standards of ordinary office buildings are difficult to meet the requirements of the experiments, so I would like you to help me find a piece of vacant land, and I'll contact the engineering contractor myself to carry out the construction."

　　After listening to Orion's words, Yves nodded, "No problem, there are a lot of land here that has not been sold yet, you can tell me where it is suitable."

　　After taking the map and studying it for a while, Orion finally chose a piece of land on the map that looked pretty good, covering an area of 10 acres, as the site for the R&D centre.

　　And his instincts proved to be pretty good.

　　Yves drove him around the site, and both the nearby traffic and the environment were quite good, a good place for research.

　　As for the specific construction plan, he would ask Wyatt, the manager of StarTech, to conduct the project bidding and hire experts to evaluate the engineering criteria, these troublesome things just don't need Orion to worry about.

　　According to Lewis's promise, if Orion can secure an investment of 30 million US dollars, the state will subsidise 30% of the investment, and if the investment exceeds 60 million US dollars, the subsidy will be doubled. Orion's initial intention was to invest $100 million, and the subsidy was naturally based on the largest standard.

　　In this way, he would be able to invest more money in instrumentation and experimental budget.

　　After the selection of the site for the research institute came to an end.

　　Orion gave Wyatt a phone call, the rest of the things will be by the Star Technology side to contact the Gordon city government, the construction side, do not need him to personally worry about these trivial things.

　　As for the period of time before the institute was built, Orion could only borrow Gordon university's site first. Fortunately, in the new campus, there are a lot of lab buildings that have just been built and the equipment has not been moved in yet, and Gordon university is also willing to help him with this favour.

　　For the sake of this matter, Dean Walter of the School of Chemistry even personally brought Orion to select a lab site on the campus of Gordon University.

　　The two were walking around the campus while chatting.

　　Dean Walter smiled and asked, "It is said that Princeton gathers the world's brightest minds, Professor Orion has been working in Princeton for almost a year now, do you have any feelings about what you've seen over there?"

　　Orion pondered for a moment before saying, "My biggest feeling is pity."

　　Dean Walter was surprised, "Oh? Where's the pity?"

　　Orion smiled and said, "Just my personal feeling, in terms of undergraduate education, the minds of Princeton freshmen are actually not much better than the geniuses of Gordon university. At least we are not lagging behind in high school level education, and we can even say that we have our own advantages."

　　After a pause, Orion continued.

　　"However, from the undergraduate level onwards, the gap between the two magnifies. And it's not just limited to magnification on an individual level, it's on the whole. And by the time you get to the graduate level, it's hard to be comparable."

　　Dean Walter said helplessly, "Professor Orion, this is too unfair a comparison. Princeton's undergraduate education is of a top-notch level in the world, not to mention us, even Harvard and MIT are hard to compare with it in terms of undergraduate education."

　　Orion smiled, "Yeah, so I just think it's a pity."

　　After a pause, he ended the slightly heavy topic and continued.

　　"Actually, I've always had an idea to build an Institute for Advanced Study next to Gordon University, based on Princeton's model."

　　Dean Walter hesitated, "It's a good idea, but I'm afraid it won't be too easy to realise."

　　Orion nodded, "You are right."

　　Replicating the success of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton was not something that could be done so easily.

　　If it was just a matter of building a building next to it, hiring some researchers to conduct research, and then teaching part-time at the Gordon university next to it, it would most likely just be a formality of imitation.

　　The ultimate end of such an institute of advanced studies will, at best, be to develop into a second graduate school of Gordon university, without any significance, but rather a waste of a lot of resources.

　　Dean Walter: "From the very beginning of its establishment, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton is a platonic research institute. To be honest, it is difficult for such an idealised research institution to survive in the country. And even if it survives, it is difficult to make achievements."

　　"Take your time and try, probably because I'm relatively young and I'm still quite optimistic about my abilities," Orion laughed and continued in a joking tone, "Or why don't we just call this yet-to-be-opened institute the Gordon Institute for Computational Materials Science? "

　　Academician Walter laughed, "That's fine, welcome! Our Gordon university happens to be looking into establishing a department of computational materials, why don't you take on a part-time role as the department head again?"

　　Orion also smiled and said, "It's not necessary to be the head of the department, I'm afraid that if I don't hold back, I'll fool all the talents of your chemical institute to work on mathematics."

　　"That won't do!"

　　Both of them were bragging in a joking tone, no one took these words seriously.

　　However, even though they said those earlier words in a joking tone, after hearing Dean Walter's proposal, Orion also seriously thought about it.

　　The battlefield was the best practice ground, and this time the country's big move in the new energy field was not only a general battle to overcome the technologies of photovoltaic materials and lithium-sulphur batteries, but also an opportunity to cultivate research talents.

　　He does not have to completely copy the model of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, rather, he can completely figure out a suitable development model out by himself.

　　If this model proved to be feasible, he would try to extend it to mathematics, physics and other fields.

　　Whether it would work or not, it would be a meaningful thing to do.

　　With this in mind, Orion said in a half-joking tone, "I'll have to make some demands then."

　　Dean Walter graciously said, " Anything you want, just say it!"

　　Orion said only one word.

　　"People!"