Research Strategic Plan
UofL's draft research strategic plan is now available:
- Executive summary
- Strategic plan presentation (PDF)
- Table 1: Research recruitment plan (PDF)
- Table 2: Research scholar recruitment plan (PDF)
- Appendix
Executive Summary
UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE RESEARCH STRATEGIC PLAN (9/2007)
OVERALL GOAL:
Increase federal grants and
contract funding to $100,000,000 over the next five years
Strategy:
Recruit junior, mid-career and senior funded investigators. Science Grants are ~
$250,000 per year. Plan: Recruit 120 externally funded new faculty members over
the next 60 months. Cost of 120 x $600,000 = $72,000,000*
1. MAJOR GOAL:
We support a Capital
Campaign to raise $1 billion.
We recommend consistent and effective efforts
to lobby the Legislature to fund the trust fund initiative thus fomenting
research in the State.
2. GOAL:
Maintain present funding
level.
Strategy: Ensure retention of faculty who are already
bringing extramural dollars to the institution by protecting their space,
increasing their income and facilitating their research and teaching
capabilities. Strategy: Encourage the appreciation that research and scholarship
go hand in hand. Reassign those faculty members who preferentially wish to teach
to non-research positions.
3. GOAL
Improve funded scholarship in the
University
Strategy: Recruit over five years 60 externally funded
scholars bringing in ~$ 2,750,000* per year. Cost of 60 x $13,000 =
$780,000.
4. GOAL
A. Increase NCI funding to achieve
NCI designation for the James Graham Brown Cancer Center
B. Develop the
Regional Bio-safety Laboratory to its maximum
C. Complete and submit the
Clinical and Translational Science Award grant
D. Improve the quality of the
faculty; improve the quantity of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral
students interested in research and scholarship.
E. Increase the appreciation
for research and all types of scholarly output by students and faculty alike,
and that they are an integral part of teaching.
Expected result: Increase quality of scholarship & research, improve nationally important metrics and elevate the reputation of the institution. Increase awareness that involvement in research and scholarship can improve classroom teaching.
Strategies (for Goals 2-4):
Goal 2
1. Retain highly productive faculty
and attract only the best (world-class scholars, teachers and researchers) to
sustain, at the very least, the present level of funding.
2. Create the
appropriate infrastructure to support research and education growth including
Bioinformatics, buildings, offices, class rooms, laboratories, technicians, and
support services such as Grants Management personnel.
3. Establish special
research fund for: a) Bridging grants; b) Small new programs (preliminary data
collection, library study, scholarly investigation trips, etc.) c) Collaborative
grant development (for PPG, Center grants, translational research, inter school
and inter-college and cross disciplinary scholarship and research); and d) to
obtain preliminary results on innovative ideas
4. Devise new and use
established ways of measuring research and scholarly productivity.
Goal 3
1. Reward faculty involved in training graduate students who apply
for and get training grants by salary increases, bonuses and/or altered work
plans.
2. Establish a fund for the Arts and the Humanities (all disciplines
not covered in hard and biological sciences)
Goal 4
1. Recruit NCI funded investigators to help achieve eventual NCI
designation
2. Recruit directors and personnel for the Regional Biosafety
Laboratory and the Center for Predictive Medicine
3. Seek faculty and
administration support and commitment for CTSA grant and for Translational
Research
2. Out-of-state tuition should be reduced so as not to price
ourselves out of the outstanding student market.
3. Better institutional
support for students to improve the quality of students attracted to the
University. 4. Improve graduate students funding and disseminate information
about university policies to students
General Goals:
a. Encourage unfunded research and scholarship (small or
no-cost to departments)
b. Optimize relations with hospitals, and other
universities
c. Improve our capacity to tell our stories of success when
appropriate
d. Increase knowledge and recognition of U of L as a research
institution by creating a series of high–level seminars, symposia, etc by
honored scholars.
5. GOAL
FOCUS AREAS
1. After evaluation (see appendix) of their efficiency and productivity,
continue to support the present focus areas: Bioengineering and engineering,
birth defects (and pediatrics), cancer, cardiovascular science,
chemistry/biochemistry, distribution and logistics, education, environmental
science and sustainable development, environmental health, liver and
gastroenterological diseases, microbiology and emerging infections neurology,
spinal cord injury and all its related laboratories and established cores,
pharmacology (personalized drug development and plant developed vaccines)
psychology (including cognitive science, clinical psychology and human
development across the life span), physics and transplantation and tissue
immunobiology. In addition, computer network & infrastructure and design,
and renewable & sustainable energy research.
2. Develop and maximize
bioinformatics, medical and health informatics, which will require the requisite
computer infrastructure. Coordinate this with the added focus area of computer
network infrastructure and design, particularly bioinformatics, needed to
support our research growth.
3. Establishment of research computing
infrastructure. Infrastructure should include high-performance computing
(supercomputers, clusters and grids), research data storage, and research
networks. Infrastructure should be designed to support a variety of research
initiatives in areas such as bioinformatics, materials science, engineering,
etc. Budget should include at least $3,000,000 per year continuing support for
research computing infrastructure.
4. Develop and provide incentives (bonus,
increase salary) for multidisciplinary collaborations and translational science
(see also Goal 9).
5. Increase the capacity for social science research
including urban geography and planning and psychosocial research. These advance
the “community based research”, and “metropolitan university” themes of the
University plan.
6. Continue the development of the Shelby Campus, to
include the Center for Predictive Medicine and Emerging Infectious Diseases,
Environmental policy and management, Kentucky Institute for the Environment and
Sustainable Development, Kentucky Center for Pollution Prevention, Hazard
Research and Policy, Information Technology Research Center, Urban Study
Institute, Center for Environmental Law and other environment related
initiatives.
7. Re-emphasis on Obesity and diabetes, a huge state and
National problem that must grow.
8. Achieve Center of Excellence designation
in Health Disparities Research by developing collaboration among Medicine,
Dentistry, Nursing, Public Health, Social Work, Arts & Science, Law, and
Engineering. In fact, a portion of the 60 scholar hires (see above) should be in
these areas.
9. Develop appropriate facility cores for center of excellence
infrastructure, which will lead to the potential for other types of grant
funding. In particular we need to absorb the spinal cord injury cores that have
already received national recognition as special resources.
HUMAN RESOURCES
6. Goal
Suggest to the Deans a
re-examination of the promotions and tenure procedures so that scholarship,
education, research, teaching & clinical services are recognized factors.
Add Translational Research and Technology Transfer and entrepreneurship
participation as factors in the promotion.
Expected result: Maximize individual capability to conduct research, teach, pursuit scholarly activities, and develop an entrepreneurial spirit recognizing all facets of academic life in the XXI century in the promotion process.
Strategies:
1. Promote a balance among teaching, scholarship, research,
service and enterprise.
2. Encourage deans to include teaching, scholarship,
outreach and translational research, tech transfer, etc in evaluation and
promotion/tenure process.
3. Improve consistency and quality of annual work
plans across units. There needs to be clarity across the university on what
these plans mean, what the chair signing them implies, and ways to help deal
with faculty who want to sign inadequate plans. It also needs to be clear that
in the final analysis of the adequacy of the conduct of the plans that the
quality and impact of the products is what’s critically important, not just the
numbers. Chairs should agree on these plans with faculty appreciating
scholarship, teaching, service and, when applicable, patents.
4. The
university must support recommendations for tenure and promotion that take into
account and are based on the quality and impact of the faculty member’s
contributions.
5. The University should help faculty personnel committee’s
to transition from being faculty advocates to being rigorous reviewers of
faculty performance.
6. Empower chairs to guide and evaluate work plans
objectively and when chairs sign they should record the adequacy of the work
plan so that they can be used for future evaluation of the faculty member.
7. Goal
Provide more time for research and scholarship
Expected result: Greater research productivity of current faculty
Strategies:
1. Increase numbers of faculty willing to do both teaching and
research.
2. Clear-cut evaluating criteria and rewards for teaching must be
developed.
3. Faculty members with primary interests in teaching rather than
research and scholarship should and will devote more time to teaching if they
know it is valued and rewarded, allowing that more research-oriented faculty
devote more effort to research.
4. Increase number of staff in research
compliance and grant processing to decrease time faculty must spend on
compliance issues.
5. Improve and simplify instructions for compliance
issues and train staff to be knowledgeable and responsible to maximize the
effectiveness of faculty time utilization in these areas.
8. Goal
Make U of L a highly desirable place to work
Expected result: Improve recruitment and retention at all levels
Strategies:
1. Recruit only the best by developing better recruitment
packages and planning ahead.
2. Improve salaries
3. Ensure diversity and
a gender balanced work force by recruiting outstanding minority scholars,
scientists and students
4. Market advantage and desirability of living in
Louisville utilizing expertise of Greater Louisville, Inc.
5. Creatively
negotiate transition bridge loans (with previous employer) when transferring
grants in order to be able to continue research uninterruptedly.
6.
Continuously develop clearly stated, attractive and innovative benefit packages
highlighting the advantages of employment at U of L
7. Be flexible and quick
to create jobs to resolve hiring pressures involving dual careers
8. Improve
junior faculty mentoring and retention programs.
9. Provide support for
single parent investigators and scholars for children care or contribute to
their being able to take them along on research field trips.
9. Goal
Create an incentive plan that stimulates individual and group grant submission.
Expected result: Stimulation of individual and group research activity through recognition and reward of interschool, interdepartmental and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Strategies:
1. Recruit grant support people who specialize in
multi-investigator/center/department types of grants and grant applications.
2. Identify Foundations, special programs and donors whose interest lies in
the arts to perpetuate additional funding by competition for scholarly pursuit
in the arts.
3. Research administration should create a boilerplate
“University description” on center grants so the scientists can focus on the
science.
4. Research administration to provide a support person for the life
of the grant application process.
5. President award for interdisciplinary
research activity at annual awards of faculty excellence to recognize
collaboration.
6. Have special recognition (bonus) of individuals who
successfully (measured by the funding success) and meaningfully participate in
group research activity or interdisciplinary collaboration.
7. Provide
institutional support for interdepartmental, inter-school “centers” that offer
the use of equipment and facilities otherwise unavailable to individual
researchers.
8. Increase institutional funds available for Collaborative
Planning and Development Awards
9. Provide institutional support for
individual grant submissions by the merit increase of funds granted to schools
whose members work on a ten month schedule for summer research awards
10.
Provide bridge support for funded researchers to prepare subsequent grant
applications prior to end of current grants by reducing teaching loads during
periods of grant proposal preparation
11. Publicize research activities and
scientific journal publications and support maintenance of up-to-date research
center websites
10. Goal
Better Recruitment of Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows
Expected result: Increase the quality, visibility and marketability of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows
Strategies:
1. Develop programs at the high school, undergraduate and
graduate levels to entice students interested in research and scholarship to
attend U of L.
2. Improve quality of trainees, postdoctoral fellows, and
identify talent that can be retained, make getting a PhD from U of L more
desirable.
3. Attract outstanding students and help them develop loyalty to
the institution by creating societies of post doctoral fellows and graduate
students on all campuses.
4. Increase the quality of graduate students: by
paying better stipends and improving recruitment strategies.
5. Increase the
number of fellowships/assistantships in designated areas where graduate programs
need to be grown.
6. Increase the funding for fellowships based upon the
submission and granting of training grants and F&A recovery.
11. Goal
Ensure that all students are exposed to scholarship and research.
Expected result: Better prepared students to conduct scholarly work and research. Science students must be conversant in both dry and wet laboratory dependent research; others in the biological sciences, engineering, chemistry and physics should be conversant with translational sciences.
Strategy: Encourage critical thinking and problem solving
Strategy:
Exposing all students to the Quality Enhancement Program.
12. Goal
Expand & improve the recruitment process, improve financial support and assure graduate student knowledge and familiarity with scholarship, basic research, clinical and applied research problems
Expected result: Enhance the capacity to attract the best and the brightest into scholarship and research and into the translational research venue.
13. Goal
Continuously evaluate research and scholar productivity using
objective and subjective factors.
Expected result: Increase institutional
national and international recognition as a top research university through the
achievement of excellence.
Strategies:
1. Develop formulae and principles for infrastructure needed
to sustain present and future levels of research.
2. Examine the mission and
productivity of existing institutes and centers and determine if these should be
eliminated or new ones develop to help further the research agenda
3. Improve
publications by measuring their quality using objective criteria.
4. Through
the EVPR add a database that tracks all faculty publications. The searchable
database of publications should have a web-based search feature.
OTHER RESOURCES
14. Goal
Increase endowment for research(see above)
Expected result: This will provide adequate funding for new recruits, competitive recruitment packages, improved graduate student and postdoctoral fellow salaries, better incentives for established productive faculty and for scholars not having access to large funding agencies.
Strategies:
1. Reappraise the donor-pool reach and enlarge & improve
the Office of Institutional Development Target specific local, regional, and
national charitable foundations as well as industry and corporate institutions
for fund raising.
2. Train individuals, units, departments, schools, centers
and institutes in the art of fund raising and development activities and have
them become partners of the development office in their special fields.
3.
Develop a more synergistic relationship among the EVPR, scientists and
Development Office
4. Educate the community and the legislature about the
meaning and importance of research.
5. Develop a target endowment for
research (see above; $500,000,000)
6. Create interest in generating matching
funds from corporate donors
7. Develop areas such as emerging infections to
attract funds from institutions such as the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation
8. Develop areas of emphasis that may attract or have potential
donors; expand existing programs and expand foci toward emerging ideas with the
same intention.
9. Name schools, buildings, conference rooms, etc., after
donors and use the money exclusively for research
10. Explore ways to link
sports triumphs and research endeavors
11. Link community awareness of
athletic programs with life style problems e.g. smoking; obesity; sedentary
habits and other health issues
12. Expand personnel in the development office
trained in all areas of fund raising and focusing on school and university
priorities
15. Goal
Increase the number of Clinical Trials at U of L (see also Goal 16)
Expected result: Increase revenue from this activity by improving its efficiency, train physicians to conduct clinical research while providing otherwise inaccessible resources to patients in general and indigent patients in particular.
Strategy:
1. Increase space to conduct outpatient clinical trials (see #2 below).
2. Centralize patient data base and personnel to help manage and
perform studies in a centralized Clinical Trials Center or Office for Clinical
Research Support and Services (OCRSS)
3. Reduce time to approve contracts, and IRB approvals without imperiling the protection of subjects to attract more studies
4. Under certain circumstances consider use of for profit IRB
5. Better coordination among hospitals and the Health Sciences Center so as to improve and credentialing systems and shorten the time to achieve it (credentialing can take 6-8 months).
6. Shorten time of contract negotiation and approval
7. Resolution of indemnification issues (U of L does not provide insurance for clinical trials), and improved policies that cover various
types of research.
8. Identify and improve infrastructure (site for the trials), personnel and policies to facilitate that we are sought out for clinical trials by the pharmaceutical industry so that the number of trials can
significantly increase.
9. Education of the public about clinical trials must be undertaken starting with the development of a clinical trials website.
10. Establish an interdisciplinary committee of the EVPR that includes the Schools of Business, Medicine and Law, hospital representatives and ethicists to prepare a white paper on the legal, ethical and business aspects of clinical trials.
11. Provide seminars, town-hall meetings, conferences, etc about
clinical trials to help develop enthusiasm for them and expound on their
benefits.
16. Goal
Maximize clinical trial & clinical research potential by creation of a clinical research institute (CRI).
Expected result: Facilitate the management and efficient conduct of clinical research so as to maximize academic goals and revenue. Invest part of the revenue in training support personnel for clinical investigators. Develop clinical and basic science collaborations and programs that stimulate the development of scholars in translational medicine thus enhancing U of L clinical reputation.
Strategies: Convene those clinical investigators that see the benefit of a centralized unit and begin working with them until the unit is so efficient that others will voluntarily join the program.
17. Goal
Obtain sufficient government funding to eventually become independent from IDeA and EPSCoR money (IdeA means Institutional Development Award Program: The program fosters health-related research and enhances the competitiveness of investigators at institutions located in states in which the aggregate success rate for applications to NIH has historically been low. The mission of EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) is to assist the National Science Foundation in its statutory function "to strengthen research and education in science and engineering throughout the United States and to avoid undue concentration of such research and education." It is similar to IDeA in that it favors states with low funding).
Expected result: The increased income from peer review funded research will recognize U of L as an institution that catapulted the State out of low government funding.
Strategies:
1. While it lasts, use EPSCoR money to build an infrastructure
that will sustain us if that funding mechanism is reduced or eliminated or
outgrown.
2. Decisions about how to pursue EPSCoR funds should be made well
in advance at a high level within the University and in recognition of
agreed-upon strategic plans and priorities so that we are always successful
while the funds are available to UofL since they are a highly valuable source of
“start-up” resources to expand current focus programs or create new areas of
emphasis.
3. The research endowment could provide the funds for an “exit
strategy” should we lose these dollars.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Space: Expand the laboratory research space including wet and dry labs.
18. Goal
Begin immediate construction of an additional 575,000 sq ft of research and teaching space two thirds to be completed over the next five years and the rest over seven years.
Maximize use of available research space.
Expected result: Permit the growth of currently successful programs and serve as a stimulus to young scholars and investigators who can become independent; encourage established investigators to share common use facilities; bring multidisciplinary groups together. Increase use of dry lab-based high level research (e.g. Bioinformatics). These grants bring equal or more money to the institution, but are not as costly.
Strategies:
1. Distribution of space based on a specific formula tied to
funding (peer review or otherwise)
2. Lobby Legislature for funds for building to support teaching and research
3. Prepare inventory of all research space (to distinguish among class rooms, class laboratories, wet and dry research laboratories) and equipment at U of L.
Equipment:
19. Goal
Purchase needed cutting edge equipment from institutional and other funding sources (government and foundations).
Expected result: Help in retaining current successful investigators while attracting new top-notch researchers involved in research that uses the newest technology to advance knowledge.
Strategy: Prepare equipment inventory (see under space above)
Materials:
20. Goal
Materials, Supplies and Services
Expected result: Improve accessibility, reduce shipping charges and hassles while saving on cost; increase volume and decrease costs
Strategies:
1. Create a virtual store incorporating vendors and existing
campus store in a single web site database incorporating information related to Small Business and/or Minority owned businesses
2. Develop a virtual store that includes a central data-base store identifying services and service fees provided or operated by the University>
ADMINISTRATION
21. Goal
Improve capacity to achieve 100% compliance with Federal regulations and accepted research standards.
Expected result: Be in compliance with safety and required procedures to prevent potential injury to workers, patients and investigators while preserving and respecting confidentiality. Avoid Federal penalties for non-compliance and reduce amount of time investigators spend on compliance activity.
Strategies:
1. Use of LAUNCH to access all forms from all committees on the web including IRB, IACUC, & Institutional Biosafety Committee and Environmental Health and Safety
2. Eliminate all paper work related to grant submission, management
3. Convert all grant submission and management paper work to electronic form.
4. Dramatically streamline Proposal Clearance Form (PCF) and eliminate PCF for pre-proposals and whitepapers.
5. Unify and standardize procedures, forms and processes for Office of Grants Management and Office of Industry Contracts.
6. Provide additional compliance support staff and locate them in schools, departments and units to better address the discipline-specific needs of investigators.
22. Goal
Assure expansion of research support services by recruiting additional personnel in the offices of Grants Management, Compliance (IRB and IACUC), Industry Contracts, & Technology Transfer commensurate with increase research activities to sustain expected growth after an analysis of the efficiency of these offices.
Expected result: Sustain the growth of both basic and clinical research and facilitate the conduct of research.
Strategies:
1. Strengthen research administration infrastructure, such as
Grants Management and the Controller’s Office
2. Provide to both basic and clinical researchers serviced that include electronic grant submission and interactive electronic information of grant management, thus facilitating the
conduct of research.
3. Strengthen research administration infrastructure,
such as Grants Management, the Controller’s Office, DEHS and Physical Plant, to match growing research needs.
4. Improve personal interface between central
administration research offices and research units.
23. Goal
Further develop technology by providing high performance computing, data storage, and networking infrastructure as university-wide research resources to ensure that our expansion and growth are couched in appropriate infrastructure resources.
Expected result: Enhanced the ability to obtain federal grants and increase university research funding.
Strategy: Establish Center or Institute for Research Computing with focus on providing infrastructure to support biomedical informatics, materials science, engineering and other research disciplines.
24. Goal
Help investigators with grant preparations and submission (See goals 15 & 16)
Expected result: Improvement in grantsmanship thus grant scores and funding
Strategies
1. Develop a central grant writing pool populated by
experienced grant editors who can build the technical writing skills
particularly of young or junior investigators with a shared cost pool by EVPR and the units.
2. Provide optional external reviews before grants are
submitted by experienced senior investigators in the department or contracted investigators in Research Office
3. Encourage better utilization of services available through the Sponsored Programs office for proposal development.
4. Implement a mentoring program for junior faculty and senior faculty who are struggling with successful grant preparation.
5. Develop on-line training modules for grant writing that are tested and proven effective
25. Goal
Maintain the capacity to transfer technology and increase effectiveness of investment in technology transfer.
Expected result: Substantial increase in industry supported research and sufficient license income to offset cost of technology transfer operations. Will have the potential for the commercialization of a “big hit” product allowing expansion of the endowment and the reinvestment of part of the income to make as many as possible research support activities self-sufficient. To increase understanding that this is a crucial University-based activity that protects investigators discoveries and academic integrity.
Strategies:
1. Continue educating faculty to the needs of disclosure and
the nature of the entrepreneurial spirit.
2. Enhance institutional capacity to convert its intellectual property into revenue
3. Improve flexibility in negotiating intellectual property agreements with industry sponsors without giving away potentially valuable property
4. Expand knowledge of institution intellectual property by outsourcing its marketing
5. Improve communication between office of technology transfer and the faculty so that as many as possible faculty members know how the disclosure, licensing and patent process begins
6. There should be a seamless, well understood process for translating
discoveries that the faculty can easily follow and understand.
7. Enhance relations with Metacyte, Institute for Advanced Cancer Therapeutics (IACT), investors and entrepreneurs
*See the rationale for recruitment and costs in the Appendix and Tables 1 and 2.
