The federal stimulus program launched by President Obama and the Congress earlier this year had many aspects.

We've seen it provide money for important city projects, to help retain teacher positions in the local schools and to make long-overdue repairs on the state's roads and bridges.

But in some ways, the dollars that have flowed in on those project pale in comparison to the flooded into our area because of stimulus money directed at research.

The influx of stimulus money is a striking reminder of the advantages this region has because of its powerhouse research universities, cornerstones of an increasingly knowledge-based economy.

The flood of money has been concentrated. Over about the past six months, researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have garnered nearly a quarter-billion dollars for more than 500 research projects.

To put that in some context, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Congress passed last February -- the stimulus package -- earmarked $15 billion for scientific research.

Our universities have, then, scored about $1 out of every $60 of that allocation.

And all the money hasn't been doled out yet. Duke researchers, for example, are confident they are still in the running for funds for some ambitious projects.

Civic pride comes into play here. But so, too, does the realization that researchers in this area, academic and private-sector, are doing cutting edge research. If we develop a vaccine against HIV-AIDs, there is a better than even chance it will emerge here, or at least will involve local researchers in the major discoveries.

While stimulus dollars no doubt would have flowed here in any event, Duke and UNC officials left little to chance. They launched high-powered operations to track possibilities and to coach and strengthen grant proposals.

James Siedow, Duke's vice provost for research, pointed out that Duke set up a "tracking team" on research proposals, hiring some extra people and pulling others in for temporary duty from other areas.

"It was like a World War II mobilization," Siedow told The Herald-Sun's Neil Offen.

The research blitzkrieg will pay off, both in jobs in Durham and Chapel Hill but also the potential for even more world-class recognition for the work being done on labs here in our area.

Bets placed by visionary industrialists and politicians here from the establishment of the first state-supported university, to the transformation of Trinity College to Duke University, to the founding of the Research Triangle Park continue to pay off as we position our region to be a prototype of the new economy.

And $250 million in stimulus funding for cutting-edge research projects is a welcome affirmation.