Strategy 3

Advance scientific discovery through transformational research

Target investment and build infrastructure in defined areas of excellence to elevate UI COM’s reputation, increase participation in team science, enhance research trainee experience, derive more benefit from partnerships, improve competitive positioning with funders, promote cross-campus collaboration, and drive innovation and discovery.

Target Completion Date: Q3 2024; Progress: 100%

Reorganize research efforts using the areas of excellence framework. Emerging areas of excellence for consideration include the following: cancer, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, and neuroscience (including visual sciences and psychiatric disorders). (Includes cross-cutting areas).

Key Activities

  • Disseminate RFI (Request for Information) to all faculty to better understand current and targeted thematic research areas
  • Analyze above data and assert results
  • Create and submit recommendations based upon analysis
  • Execute upon approved recommendations to establish and demonstrate alignment around research framework
  • Launch thematic research groups

Subcommittee Membership

Jalees Rehman, Angela Tyner, Subhash Pandey

Target Completion Date: Q4 2024; Progress: 98%

Develop comprehensive multi-year workforce plan(s) to address faculty and staff recruitment and productivity.

Key Activities

  • Quantify a baseline research faculty workforce model by academic unit and/or research theme that can be robustly supported with the existing college resources, and communicate goals to department leadership
  • Devise and distribute reports to college/departmental leadership on faculty salary compared to competitive market rates
  • Create a census of early stageinvestigators and track progress towards externally sponsored research
  • Determine optimal junior faculty start-up packages based on research and best practices analysis
  • Identify/document potential supplemental funding from central sources (e.g., dedicated gift funds within the Dean’s Office) for additional investment in mid-career research faculty
  • Create standardized reports, including key performance indicators (KPIs), and make available to departmental leadership along with the underlying datasets

Subcommittee Membership

Nicholas Kane, Gelila Goba, Brian Layden

Target Completion Date: Q3 2024; Progress: 40%

Establish enabling framework which will enhance the ability to successfully pursue new research partnerships to achieve national and international recognition for scientific excellence in key thematic areas.

Key Activities

  • Undertake analysis of current policies and procedures and challenges around partnering
  • Establish UI COM thematic-area value-proposition document that articulates what we bring to the table that is marketable and explains why potential partners would want to partner with us
  • Build systems to promote partnership among faculty and engage faculty around external partnering
  • Establish a system for prioritized-partner outreach both nationally and internationally

Subcommittee Membership

Maria Siemionov, Orly Lazarow, J.P. Jin, Kamran Avanaki

 

Target Completion Date: Q4 2024; Progress: 46%

Promote team science, facilitate cross-campus faculty collaboration, foster faculty development at all levels, and provide training and career development opportunities for the next generation of researchers.

Key Activities

  • Build critical mass of faculty and resources at all campuses in order to effectively participate in collaboration and recruit toward synergizing
  • Survey faculty at all campuses to understand current barriers (for different levels of faculty); administer focus group with a good sample set of participants from different categories
  • Establish and understand methodology by which individual faculty are rewarded when participating in team science; adjust P&T impacts to align incentives, including awards programs, etc.
  • Build college-wide collaboration webspace around thematic areas; Potentially build database to enable people to understand others with shared interests
  • Determine a plan to break-down barriers across departments and ensure they are less siloed; develop a plan for “sharing”/splitting costs and provide benefits to help people move to these larger team grants
  • Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series
  • Medical Student Scientific Conference Program

Subcommittee Membership

Robin Mermelstein, Marcelo Bento De Mello Soares, Ian Papautsky

Target Completion Date: Q3 2024; Progress: 100%

Develop infrastructure to promote collaborative research and translational drug discovery/therapeutics, including but not limited to big data science and data management, analytics, equipment, shared services, space usage policies, etc.

Key Activities

  • Develop programs for incentivizing research collaborations
  • Revise space metrics to recognize collaborative research
  • Identify research infrastructure and equipment needed to support major research areas

Subcommittee Membership

Alan Diamond, Lea Smucker, Deepak Shukla

Target Completion Date: Q3 2024; Progress 80%

Streamline research processes from discovery to commercial application.

Key Activities

  • Develop and run regular workshops on IP, company formation, and SBIR/STTR
  • Develop and run regular workshops on funding and commercialization
  • Provide guidelines/information on funding and mechanism for assisting with applications
  • Develop and run regular workshops on business plan preparation and presentation
  • Build webspace with all information and resources needed for commercialization efforts

Subcommittee Membership

Bellur Prabhakar, Ramaswamy Kalyanasundaram, Bin He

Metrics Heading link

Number of high-impact studies/publications

DRAFT ONLY

Current Value: 0 Target Value: 0

Number of research grants award across areas of excellence

DRAFT ONLY

Current Value: 0 Target Value: 0

Increased participation in clinical trials

DRAFT ONLY

Current Value: 0 Target Value: 0

% of new license agreements / patents per year

DRAFT ONLY

Current Value: 0 Target Value: 0