Nov. 4, 2009 - The Office of Research and Economic Development hosted its annual Research Reception and Awards Presentation on November 2 to honor UNT leaders in research, scholarship and creative endeavors. The reception also included an awards ceremony where six awards — five of which were newly created, were handed out to recognize outstanding faculty researchers. Read more.
Sept. 22, 2009 - The University of North Texas today announced the formation of two new collaborative research clusters that will build on innovative research already under way on the campus. The announcement brings the total number of active research clusters at work to seven, following the initial announcement of the cluster initiative in September 2008. Read more.
An Extended Version of Dr. Prasad’s September 2009 Letter to UNT Faculty
As in the last two years, I would like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date on happenings and changes in the UNT Office of Research and Economic Development. This is an exciting time at UNT, and it is certainly exciting to be a part of UNT’s growing research enterprise. Below are some brief summaries of news and changes related to UNT research, and our office.
External Awards.Some of our most exciting news includes the incredible increase in external grant awards secured by UNT researchers. Total external awards for fiscal year 2009 were $37,676,912, which is a 39.4% increase over FY08, and a 60.6% increase over FY07. UNT has excellent faculty and researchers, and this impressive increase is a definite endorsement of the quality of the research being conducted by them.
Faculty Excellence.Faculty across the university continue to excel in various ways. Two particular highlights include the career awards of Rada Mihalcea and Srinivasan Srivilliputhur. Rada Mihalcea, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, was among only 100 researchers nationwide to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor a beginning scientist or engineer can receive in the US. Dr. Mihalcea is being recognized for her ground breaking work on understanding the meaning of text. She will receive the award later this fall from President Obama at a ceremony at the White House. Srinivasan Srivilliputhur, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, was awarded an NSF CAREER award, the most prestigious award offered by NSF for young researchers. The award includes a $430K grant to support his work on ultra-light materials. The community outreach component of the project will focus on increasing enrollment of blind students in science and engineering programs. Dr. Srivilliputhur is only the fifth UNT faculty member to receive an NSF CAREER award.
In recognition of our excellent faculty across UNT and their accomplishments in research, scholarship, and creativity, we recently announced a brand new slate of awards to begin this Fall: UNT Research Leadership Award, UNT Creative Impact Award, UNT Early Career Award for Research and Creativity, UNT Competitive Funding Award, and UNT Teacher Scholar Award. A call for nominations has been sent out, and we will be announcing winners at our Research Reception on November 2. UNT faculty are among the best in higher education; this is just our modest attempt to recognize some of the “best of the best”!
Research Clusters. Our faculty-led research clusters are continuing to bear fruit in the form of publications, research grants, and accomplishments that garner national visibility, even as our investment in these clusters allows them to add new faculty. In the clusters that were launched last year, we are welcoming several new additions to our faculty: David Stout, a senior faculty member and artist who has joined our Initiative for Advanced Research and Technology in the Arts cluster; Zhiqiang Wang, a computational materials scientist has joined the Materials Modeling Research Cluster, and Qunfeng Dong, a bioinformatics specialist who will have a joint appointment in Biological Sciences and Computer Science and Engineering, will be joining the Developmental Physiology and Genetics Research cluster. Other searches are ongoing.
Soon you will hear announcements about our two new clusters, resulting from the competition that was held in the Spring: Cradle-to-Cradle: Multifunctional Renewable Bioproduct Solutions, led by Nandika D’Souza (Materials Science and Engineering); and the Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program, led by Ricardo Rozzi (Philosophy and Religion Studies). Look for more to be announced about these exciting new multidisciplinary research clusters in the very near future.
New and Upgraded Facilities. We have made significant progress in multiple areas in improving and expanding infrastructure for faculty research or making existing infrastructure more available. A new $2.2M high performance computing facility is currently undergoing testing and should be available for faculty use later this semester. The system represents a ten-fold increase in centralized compute power on campus and will be the largest such system among academic institutions in the north Texas region. A multi-disciplinary group of faculty and staff representing a broad base of departments and colleges developed the final hardware configuration. CITC will manage the facility and will soon begin the search for a new manager. We are working with CITC and the deans to establish a faculty advisory group, which will develop policy for use of the system and assure that the facility meets the needs of a broad base of current and anticipated faculty users.
Contracts with the architects and contractor have been finalized and work will begin soon on a new 3000 sq. ft. cleanroom/nanofabrication facility at Discovery Park. The class 10,000 (with class 100 areas) space will for the first time provide space at UNT to create devices which can then be studied using existing state-of-the-art CART analysis facilities. A national search is in progress for a manager for the facility. A multi-disciplinary group of faculty has been working to acquire some of the basic equipment needed for the cleanroom. To date, approximately $1.7M of equipment has been purchased or is on order and will be incorporated into the design of the space.
This past year I appointed Raj Banerjee, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, as the Interim Director of the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART). Under his leadership, we have revamped the fee structure and made access to the facility more user friendly. I am happy to report much positive feedback from faculty as a result of these changes. In response to specific faculty requests, we have also recently purchased an additional $300K of equipment that will further improve CART’s ability to serve faculty research needs.
In addition to these major, centralized upgrades to the research infrastructure at UNT, we have continued to partner with the colleges and schools to upgrade individual laboratories and provide other infrastructural necessities for the research, scholarship and creativity of our faculty. Laboratory reconstruction and upgrade efforts totaling $1.7M span areas as diverse as physical activity research in persons with disabilities, through digitized video analysis of trainees performing psychological services, to accessing and navigating a searchable database of literary resources. To continue our path as a vibrant and evolving research university, we will continue to monitor and invest in our research infrastructure at UNT.
Research Development. During the 2009-2010 academic year, our Research Development Team (RDT) will continue to work directly with faculty and to present education, training, and networking workshops. Last year, the RDT offered more than 30 workshops and training sessions (several including outside experts) that were well-attended by our faculty and researchers; over 30 workshops are already scheduled for this academic year. Introduced this year will be the new faculty workshop luncheon series, led by Rick Nader. The workshops are geared specifically for tenure-track faculty new to UNT since August, 2008.
The RDT is fully immersed in local, national, and international initiatives related to developing partnerships, collaborations and research funding opportunities. As an example, Senior Director of Research Development, Denise Perry Simmons, is the UNT representative for both the DFW Life Science Council whose mission it is to promote collaboration opportunities among Universities in the metroplex, and the North Texas coalition of Universities whose mission it is to develop and move forward multi-institutional proposals to CPRIT. CPRIT (Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas) is the State appointed entity responsible for developing, announcing, awarding, distributing >$3 billion in Texas funds set aside for cancer research.
In addition to workshops and networking, the RDT provides individualized attention to faculty needs. RDT members are working with a number of UNT faculty members who have requested direct assistance in taking the “next steps” in pursuing extramural funding. The RDT’s team-oriented approach, in which each investigator works with a research director, a grant officer and a graphic designer, has proven successful throughout the recent effort in pursuit of stimulus funding (UNT faculty members received >$1.4M in stimulus funding to date), and will remain a part of our services.
Internal Funding. Even as we are expand the research clusters in new and exciting ways, and facilitating faculty in their pursuit of extramural grants to support their work, we are continuing our commitment to supporting our faculty with internal grants for research, scholarship, and creative works. In addition to the Faculty Research Grant programs, we partnered with the Provost last year to initiate the Research and Creativity Enhancement (RCE) program. Over the past summer, the first cohort of RCE recipients—all faculty in the literary and performing arts—received salary support and travel funds to accomplish their proposed projects. We are continuing the RCE program, and are already beginning the next competition. As yet another way to make our internal funding programs effective and accountable, we have developed an electronic reporting process so that PIs can submit their progress and final reports on-line. This will allow us to rapidly publicize the faculty’s accomplishments as well as to conduct effective self-evaluation regarding how well the programs are working.
Indirect Costs. We successfully negotiated the Facilities and Administrative costs (F&A) rates based on base year FY2008 expenditures. The reimbursement rate for the costs of conducting research increased 1.5 points to 47% effective for 3 years. This will mean a modest increase in the amount of indirect cost funds that are returned to PIs, Co-PIs, Chairs, and Deans to provide funds for important discretionary research investments, and also allow this office to continue investing in research infrastructure.
Graduate Student Stipends and Tuition. Our office has worked closely with the Graduate School and the Provost’s Office to develop a graduate student compensation plan that raises stipends to competitive levels and, when possible, provides tuition and fees. As part of this plan, external grant proposals that include requests for GRAs are now required to budget for competitive stipends and tuition and fee reimbursement if allowable by the sponsor. The initiative will raise the level of research at UNT by ensuring that high-quality graduate students can be recruited and supported.
Research Integrity and Compliance. Recent improvements in compliance procedures include implementation of effort reporting for federally funded salaries at the end if each academic term and summer. We appreciate your cooperation with bringing effort reporting into compliance with federal regulations. We hired an additional research integrity analyst to facilitate review and approval of applications for the use of human subjects in research. A new revision of the IRB guidelines will soon be posted on our website and will go into effect 10/15/09. Major improvements include having faculty serve as PI for IRB and the submission of IRB applications electronically. Check our website for training opportunities and more information. Finally, export control regulations are becoming of increasing importance in research that has national security and trade implications. Export controls information can be found here and more training will be offered soon.
Improved Grants Management. In a continuing effort to provide quality customer service for faculty and staff engaging in externally sponsored projects, I would like to inform you of recent modifications and upgrades of our services. First, the monthly Management Certifications for project accounts will no longer be required by the Budget Office. COGNOS reporting should continue to be used to assist in on-going tracking and final review of awarded funds. Second, our post-award staff will ensure requisitions submitted on grant accounts are approved as purchase orders, encumbrances are liquidated, and payments are issued in a timely manner. If a delay in activity is detected, our post-award staff will work immediately wtih Purchasing and Payment Services on behalf of the PI to resolve the issue. A notification email will be sent to the PI and/or their department/dean administrator of action taken. Similarly, our post-award staff will verify the accuracy of the payroll expenditures posted to project accounts. The verification will ensure the information on the payroll form is accurately entered into the accounting system and posted to the appropriate project account.
Technology Transfer and Economic Development. Discovery Park is continuing to take shape as UNT’s research park, incubator, and hub of intellectual property management and technology transfer. FY2009 represented dramatic increases over FY2008 in a variety of areas: intellectual property disclosures were up 400%, patent applications were up over 100%, and patents issued were up 25%. Regarding the incubator, plans are nearing finalization for construction of additional space, but nearly a dozen start-up companies are already receiving incubator assistance from our team. As exciting as all of this progress is now, we expect to have even greater things to report in the coming year at Discovery Park. Discovery Park is continuing to take shape as UNT’s research park, incubator, and hub of intellectual property management and technology transfer. Plans are nearing finalization for construction of a 4,000 sq. ft. technology incubator (Phase I) and a new office for UNT Discovery Park. Nearly a dozen start-up companies are already receiving incubator assistance from our team. FY2009 represented increases over FY2008 in a variety of areas, from intellectual property disclosures to patents issued. As exciting as this progress is now, we expect to have even greater things to report in the coming year at Discovery Park.
In closing, I would like to note that we have been and will continue to work closely with Provost Wilkins and other UNT leaders to expand and promote research excellence at UNT. Let me also urge each of you to check frequently our ever-growing calendar of workshops and short coursesdesigned to assist you in your research and creative endeavors. In addition to offering training and advice for seeking and managing grants, this venue will also be an important way to learn about pending changes in research policies locally and nationally (e.g., revised UNT policies on research integrity; new NSF policies on training students in research ethics, etc.).
Sincerely,
Vish Prasad
Vice President for Research and Economic Development
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