The Research Implementation Team spent the 2014-15 academic year outlining a solid — and achievable — path to greater national prominence as a public research university. With the ultimate goal to emerge as a Tier One research university, UNT is actively working to strengthen its research and economic development activity and funding, develop key research strengths, and establish more public and private partnerships.
Led by Tom McCoy, vice president for research and economic development, this team is focused on creating a strong research master plan that clearly identifies the resources and infrastructure UNT needs to attain its goals. To build a stronger research and economic development enterprise at UNT, the team identified key strategies to create a more research-active culture, increase research funding, increase technology transfer and economic development, and build more industry collaborations.
The Path to Prominence
Achieving national prominence and Tier One status as a research institution are two separate, but related goals, and they are long-term goals that center on building UNT’s research enterprise and productivity.
As one of Texas’ emerging research universities, UNT already has a strong foundation with a broad base of research and scholarship across many disciplines from the arts to social science to science and engineering. And it is fast becoming a research hub for plant sciences, renewable energy technologies, bioproducts, computational research, materials science and engineering, and logistics.
But to advance, UNT must change its culture to be more research-active and focused on collaboration and commercialization.
To more strategically move the university forward in research productivity, albeit in incremental steps, the team is overseeing several projects that ultimately will lead to more national prominence for UNT. Those projects fall under the following umbrella strategies:
- Outlining a clear Path to RU/VH (research university with very high research activity). RU/VH is an important metric of achieving Tier One status, as defined by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education™, a framework for measuring institutional characteristics. UNT is currently classified as a research university with high research activity, or RU/H, which is one level away from RU/VH.
- Improving Grants and Contracts service
- Expanding Research Space and Shared Facilities
- Establishing RU/VH Caliber Technology Transfer
- Energizing UNT’s Economic Development
One key goal is to hit $45 million in annual restricted research expenditures — a metric established by the state of Texas through a fund to support emerging research universities like UNT — in the next 10 years. UNT must make substantial increases along the way to more than double its research enterprise.
Leveraging UNT’s success to date is the best move forward. For example, capitalizing on the faculty cluster hires in plant science and materials science is enabling UNT to launch three Research Institutes of Excellence in areas that UNT already has a critical mass of knowledge and faculty collaborating on research. The institutes — the BioDiscovery Institute and the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Processes Institute, along with the Logistics Systems Institute — are expected to launch in fall 2015.
Areas for Improvement
This past year, the team’s priorities were to:
- Streamline the university’s research processes to become more efficient and helpful to faculty and university partners
- Outline accountable steps to increase national research prominence
- Provide better outreach and service to key university communities, as well as business and industry
- Pave the way for greater research impacts and more funding
The Research Implementation Team also identified key areas for immediate improvement that would help the university create a more research-active faculty who are better able to drive stronger programs in technology transfer and commercialization in research. The team focused on ways to improve internal processes, service and support — from providing graduate student tuition support to overhauling the grants and contracts office — to grow a more research productive faculty body.
Research Implementation Team Projects by Theme
Research
- Research Active Faculty
- Launch the Institutes of Research Excellence – Advanced Materials in Manufacturing Processes (AMMPI), BioDiscovery Institute (BDI), Logistics Systems Institute (LSI). Also includes the existing Institute of Applied Science (IAS)
- Research Productivity
- Interdisciplinary Research
Research Infrastructure
Faculty
Research Collaborations
Economic Development
- Technology Transfer
- Office of Economic Development
- Discovery Park Plan
- Economic Development Collaborations
- Alliance Airport Collaborations
Graduate Student Recruitment/Enrollment/Support
- Graduate Student Tuition
- Graduate Student Recruitment
- Research Funding for Graduate Students
- Graduate Student Mentoring
RESEARCH
Project | Research Active Faculty |
Summary | The goal of the project is to increase the number or research active/grant active STEM faculty. |
Status | 15 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Academic Affairs | Finley Graves |
Project | Launch the Institutes of Research Excellence – Advanced Materials in Manufacturing Processes (AMMPI), BioDiscovery Institute (BDI), Logistics Systems Institute (LSI). Also includes the existing Institute of Applied Science (IAS). |
Summary | The goal of the project is to support the Institutes of Research Excellence by building on the faculty hired as part of the research clusters program along with existing highly productive faculty, initially in three areas: bio-discovery, logistics, materials science. |
Status | 50 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Academic Affairs | Rajiv Mishra |
Project | Research Productivity |
Summary | The goal of the project is to optimize faculty composition to increase research productivity. |
Status | 25 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Academic Affairs | Finley Graves |
Project | Interdisciplinary Research |
Summary | The goal of the project is to increase interdisciplinary success campus-wide. |
Status | 20 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | Finley Graves |
RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE
Project | Research Infrastructure Investments |
Summary | The goal of the project is to continually optimize investments in campus facilities and infrastructure to increase research productivity. |
Status | 15 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
President's Office | President Neal Smatresk |
Project | Research Space |
Summary | The goal of the project is to increase research space across campus and establish and create Shared Instrumentation Research facilities. |
Status | 25 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Research and Economic | David Schultz |
Academic Affairs | Members of the Advisory Committee for each facility |
Project | Office of Grants and Contracts Administration |
Summary | The goal of the project is to continually improve the Office of Grants and Contracts Administration (OGCA). |
Status | 30 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Academic Affairs | Members of the Advisory Committee for each facility |
FACULTY
Project | Promotion and Tenure Standards |
Summary | The goal of the project is to align UNT promotion and tenure standards with those of RU/VH (research university with very high research activity) institutions, according to Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. |
Status | 50 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Finley Graves, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs |
Members (by division, group) | |
Academic Affairs | Deans |
RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS
Project | SBIR and STTR federal proposals |
Summary | The goal of the project is to assist faculty with SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) and STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) proposals to federal agencies by facilitating company collaborations. |
Status | 20 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Research and Economic | Associate VPs |
Project | Research-Industry Collaborations |
Summary | The goal of the project is to identify problems where UNT may be able to provide solutions by visiting R&D (research and development) operations of companies in the DFW metroplex and aligning company scientists and engineers with faculty expertise at UNT. |
Status | 20 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Research and Economic | Associate VPs |
Project | Shared Instrumentation Facilities |
Summary | The goal of the project is to market UNT's Shared Instrumentation Facilities to the private sector and facilitate the gaining of access to these facilities. |
Status | 25 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Research and Economic | David Schultz |
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Project | Technology Transfer |
Summary | The goal of the project is to create a successful Technology Transfer Office and Commercialization Process at UNT. |
Status | 25 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) |
|
Research and Economic | New Associate VP for Economic Development |
Project | Office of Economic Development |
Summary | The goal of the project is to create an Office of Economic Development in the Office of Research and Economic Development. |
Status | 50 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) |
|
| Search Committee members |
Project | Discovery Park Plan |
Summary | The goal of the project is to develop a vision for Discovery Park and its potential contributions to economic development, and to the growth of the College of Engineering and the College of Information. |
Status | 20 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
President's Office | President Neal Smatresk |
Academic Affairs | Finley Graves |
Finance and Administration | Bob Brown |
Advancement | David Wolf |
Project | Economic Development Collaborations |
Summary | The goal of the project is to collaborate with economic development offices in the DFW metroplex and become an economic development partner for cities, communities and industry. |
Status | 40 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Research and Economic | New Associate Vice President for Economic Development |
Project | Alliance Airport Collaborations |
Summary | The goal of the project is to build a strong collaboration with Alliance Airport including establishing a Logistics Lab at Alliance similar to the one in the BLB. |
Status | 25 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | |
Research and Economic | New Associate VP for Economic Development |
Academic Affairs | Terry Pohlen, LSI director |
GRADUATE STUDENT RECRUITMENT/ENROLLMENT/SUPPORT
Project | Graduate Student Tuition |
Summary | The goal of the project is to provide tuition for all funded 0.5 FTE (full-time equivalent) graduate TAs (teaching assistants) and RAs (research assistants). |
Status | 100 percent complete |
Team Lead | Finley Graves, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs |
Members (by division, group) | |
Research and Economic | Tom McCoy |
Finance and Administration | Bob Brown |
Toulouse Graduate School | Costas Tsatsoulis |
Project | Graduate Student Recruitment |
Summary | The goal of the project is to re-invest revenues from the tuition assistance program to enhance the quality and the quantity of graduate students. |
Status | 20 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Finley Graves, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs |
Members (by division, group) | Tom McCoy |
Project | Research Funding for Graduate Students |
Summary | The goal of the project is to increase funding for research support for graduate students in all disciplines. |
Status | 10 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Tom McCoy, Vice President for Research and Economic Development |
Members (by division, group) | Costas Tsatsoulis |
Project | Graduate Student Mentoring |
Summary | The goal of the project is to improve mentoring and support of graduate students. |
Status | 25 percent and ongoing |
Team Lead | Finley Graves, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
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Members (by division, group) |
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