BP accepted a proposal Thursday from the University of California-Berkeley and University of Illinois to set up a $500 million biofuel research institute, declining the proposal submitted by Iowa State in cooperation with the University of California-San Diego and the J. Craig Venter Institute of Rockville, Md.

“We put together a very good proposal,” said ISU President Gregory Geoffroy. “This isn’t going to diminish our interest and focus on renewable fuels.”

Geoffroy acknowledged the tough competition that Iowa State faced from Berkeley – seven Nobel laureates and over 120 members of the National Academy of Sciences are members of Berkeley’s faculty.

UC-Berkeley is also a leader in the field of synthetic biology, a science that involves using natural processes for industrial purposes and reproducing natural chemicals under artificial conditions.

“It was great to be invited to be in the competition; our team came very, very close,” Geoffroy said.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the oldest of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories, will also be conducting research as part of the institute.

“That lab and Berkeley itself have experience with very large projects,” said John Brighton, vice president of research and economic development.

“I feel disappointed that we weren’t successful in getting this award, but we knew the competition was very strong.”

Despite missing the BP grant, Brighton was optimistic about Iowa State’s future with biorenewable energy, citing a proposal recently submitted for the Department of Energy’s Genome to Life bio-energy research project.

If the DOE grant gets awarded to Iowa State, the university would receive up to $125 million over a period of five years in order to research plant and microbial systems and their roles in energy production.

“We are in a position to be successful and we will be successful in the future,” Brighton said. “We have very strong faculty in this area.”

Chad Hart, scientist in the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, said not snagging such awards is always disappointing, but added that other research money is almost always available.

“That’s the way the grant process works,” Hart said.

“It always hurts not to win one,” he said. “If you get one-quarter of the grants you apply for, you’re doing pretty well.”

Hart predicted the new Energy Biosciences Institute would be in good hands with the partnership selected for the project.

“The combination of Berkeley and Illinois is a fine combination,” Hart said.

Mechanical engineering professor Robert Brown, director of the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies and Iowa State’s lead scientist on the biofuels institute proposal, was unavailable for comment.