Strategic Focus Area 4: Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

• Tactic 1: Foster growth of University and Kummer Research Centers.
• Tactic 2: Kummer Ignition Grant Initiative.
• Tactic 3: Award capture team to identify grant opportunities and communicate to faculty.
• Tactic 4: University Research Center Seed Grants.
• Tactic 5: Seed Research Grant Initiative for arts, humanities and social sciences.
• Tactic 6: Provide training for non-STEM faculty on RFPs (NGOs, foundations, etc.).
• Tactic 7: Promote excellence in scholarship beyond research expenditures.
• Tactic 8: Provide training, coaching, and mentoring for faculty of all ranks to pursue large grants.
• Tactic 9: Grow research support structure (staffing and resources).
• Tactic 10: Foster student entrepreneurship by facilitating the creation of student-led startup companies.
• Tactic 11: Incentivize entrepreneurship with a dual focus on groundbreaking technologies and humanities-based initiatives.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

• Tactic 1: Operationalize the Protoplex.
• Tactic 2: Establish or fill research center director positions.
• Tactic 3: Bio-Plex.
• Tactic 4: Critical Mineral Testbed Facility and Analytical Support Structure.
• Tactic 5: NSF Major Research Instrumentation proposals.
• Tactic 6: Create a campus-wide Analytical Instruments Facility.
• Tactic 7: Improve IT support for research, including IT infrastructure, CUI data center, and computer replacements.
• Tactic 8: Enforce safety and training requirements in research facilities.
• Tactic 9: Facilitate feasibility study of a micro nuclear reactor.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

• Tactic 1: Increase number of collaborators in large funding proposals.
• Tactic 2: Increase number and dollar amount of proposals in College of Engineering and Computing (CEC).
• Tactic 3: Increase number and dollar amount of proposals in College of Arts Sciences and Education (CASE).
• Tactic 4: Increase number and dollar amount of proposals in Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development (KCOL).
• Tactic 5: Hiring of tenure/tenure-track (T/TT) faculty in strategically important areas according to R1 T/TT faculty hiring strategic plan. (i.e., Advanced Manufacturing and Electronics, BioX, Smart Systems, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, Extreme Environments, STEM and non-STEM Enhancement).
• Tactic 6: Develop innovative strategies to fund start-up packages (e.g., endowments).
• Tactic 7: Collaborate with Kummer Institute (KI) Center directors to foster the growth and leadership of the centers on large proposals.
• Tactic 8: U.S. DOE EPIXC (Energy Program for Innovation Clusters) Manufacturing Innovation Institute.
• Tactic 9: Implement FY24 $9M MOEXCELS grant with Community College partners and MAE department Chair and Faculty.
• Tactic 10: Implement FY24 $3M DOL Grant with Industry Collaborators.
• Tactic 11: Increase number of ≥ $10M multi-institutional proposals in core science and engineering (S&E) areas.
• Tactic 12: Increase number of ≥ $5M multi-institutional proposals in emerging S&E areas.
• Tactic 13: Increase the number to ≥ $1M /year proposals in non-S&E areas.
• Tactic 14: Increase externally funded R&D expenditures per faculty.
• Tactic 15: Grow annual congressional programmatic and earmark requests.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

• Tactic 1: Attract externally funded postdocs, such as NSF/NIH/Fulbright postdocs.
• Tactic 2: Increase number of postdocs.
• Tactic 3: Increase number of non-tenure-track (NTT) research professors.
• Tactic 4: Increase number of research engineers/scientists.
• Tactic 5: Identify new job families to foster growth of KI Centers.
• Tactic 6: Enable KI and University Research Centers to hire and promote research professors and professional staff.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Provost of Graduate Education

• Tactic 1: Increase the number of research-active faculty involved in doctoral student advising.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

• Tactic 1: Advance research excellence to improve university ranking.
• Tactic 2: Promote publications in prestigious journals (e.g., Nature, Science).
• Tactic 3: Increase the number of early career faculty awards (e.g., NSF, NASA, DOE, DOD NIH).
• Tactic 4: Nominate outstanding faculty for prestigious awards in their fields and assist departments/colleges in preparing nomination packages.
• Tactic 5: Increase the number of (inter)national workshops in areas of strength.
• Tactic 6: Improve analytical research infrastructure to attract off-campus users.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization

• Tactic 1: Increase the number of invention disclosures.
• Tactic 2: Increase the number of patent applications from S&T.
• Tactic 3: Increase the number of intellectual property (IP) related agreements.
• Tactic 4: Create a campus environment that encourages the formation of new companies.
• Tactic 5: Promote policy impact of research.
• Tactic 6: Broaden societal impact through knowledge dissemination, community outreach, and policies.

Attain Carnegie R1; Achieve a top 100 ranking.

Research and Creative Works; Engagement and Outreach.