University Research Council
Meeting Summary
COUNCIL RETREAT
Members of the Council met to discuss the Council’s agenda
for the upcoming academic year.
Attendees focused upon several areas:
Grant Programs
Fewer faculty members applied for grants from the Central
Research Development Fund (CRDF) this year than in the past. Thirty-eight individuals applied for funding
from the CRDF this year as opposed to 50 last year. Applications to the Multidisciplinary Small
Grant Program increased slightly over last year. Thirteen individuals applied for funding from
the program this year compared to eight last year. Both programs were underutilized by the
University’s faculty this year.
Multidisciplinary
Research
Junior faculty members frequently are not rewarded when
they conduct collaborative, multidisciplinary research because the tenure and
promotion review process highlights individual, discipline-specific
research. However, junior faculty can overcome
this obstacle if they choose projects carefully and can isolate their
contribution to the project. The
balkanization of academic disciplines, discipline-specific grant evaluation
procedures, and the Federal budget crunch hamper all faculty members’ attempts
to conduct multidisciplinary research.
It is best if a multidisciplinary research team has
collaborated prior to responding to an RFP.
However, multidisciplinary teams at the University have coalesced during
the proposal preparation process and have eventually garnered external support,
even if the team is not initially funded.
The University is currently examining how it can expand upon its current
collaborative relationships with industry.
The University’s faculty members frequently are not
familiar with the research that other faculty members are conducting. The existing expertise databases – FRIP in
the Health Sciences and the Community of Science more generally – are not used
as frequently as they could be. Multidisciplinary
work would be facilitated if faculty members could easily access the
biographical sketches of their peers. Faculty
members could prepare brief biographical sketches, which would be housed on the
individuals’ respective departmental web pages.
These summaries would not require frequent updates and could be linked
via keywords to the University’s search engine.
Miscellaneous
Other topics of discussion included: