University Research Council
January 16, 2008
Meeting Summary
Multidisciplinary Grant Award Report
Richard Schulz, Director of the University Center
for Social and Urban Research, reported on the status of his multidisciplinary
grant project. Individuals from six
departments and several interdisciplinary centers participate in the project,
which focuses on suffering. Dr. Schulz
discussed problems related to defining, conceptualizing, and measuring
suffering. He and his team developed a
comprehensive measure of suffering that they are using in preliminary
studies. Dr. Schulz recently recruited
Joan Monin to be a postdoctoral fellow in his
lab. Dr. Monin
is studying the manifestation of suffering in older individuals with
musculoskeletal conditions.
Report from the Office of Research
Allen DiPalma,
Director of the Office of Research, discussed several topics. They included:
- Negotiations with pharmaceutical companies
- Beta testing of the Office’s electronic proposal development
module
- Research agreements with federally funded research and
development centers (FFRDCs)
URC Funding Programs
Application deadlines for the URC’s
Central
Research Development Fund
and Multidisciplinary
Small Grants Program
are approaching. The due dates for
applications are February 22 and March 14 respectively. URC members will evaluate the proposals.
Federal Agencies Trip
This year’s federal agencies trip will take place
on March 16 and 17. Faculty members from
engineering and the sciences will travel to Washington, D.C.,
to be briefed on federal funding opportunities.
NIH Public Access Policy
NIH is implementing a policy that requires
scientists to submit journal articles that arise from NIH funds to the digital
archive, PubMed Central. The full text of the policy is located on the
agency’s website.
Miscellaneous
Council members also discussed:
- Calendar Committee
- Funding for and management of
the Department of Energy’s Fermi Lab
- NSF requests for reviewers
- Department of Defense funding