Designated Centers and Major research Thrusts at the University of Kansas

1. Introduction

A major goal at the University of Kansas, articulated by Chancellor Hemenway and Vice Chancellor Barnhill, is to significantly increase KU's volume of externally funded research. In order to make dramatic gains in research productivity, the university must dramatically embrace interdisciplinary research. This point was emphasized in Chancellor Hemenway's Opening Convocation address on September 9, 1998. Major research centers and institutes, such as the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies (LSI) which works with 35 academic departments on the Lawrence campus and at the Medical Center, are an important organizational vehicle for conducting interdisciplinary research. Indeed much of the success of the LSI is attributable to the center's broad interdisciplinary approach. As new research thrusts are identified and as current thrusts grow and mature, we must be prepared to form new centers or expand and invest in existing ones.

KU is fortunate to be organized as a "matrix" with the major research centers and institutes constituting one dimension of the matrix and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the professional schools the other. For example, the directors of KU research centers and institutes, surveys, science-based museums, and core service laboratories all report to the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Public Service. This type of organization, when properly implemented, facilitates interdisciplinary research, and again the LSI is a grand example of success. Universities that tie research centers and institutes to disciplinary academic units will increasingly find themselves at a disadvantage in attempting to form effective teams to compete for interdisciplinary research grants which are more and more becoming the norm.

Unfortunately, in the past, KU's method of assigning credit for research funding and the subsequent distribution of indirect cost return sometimes led to conflict between centers and institutes and the academic units. This barrier to realizing the full potential of KU's matrix organization has been eliminated with the new method of assigning credit and distributing indirect return as recommended by the Center for Research Transition Team in 1997. In essence, both an academic unit and a center or institute are credited with the same dollar of research funding based on the responsible center and the appointment of the researcher (who also receives credit for that dollar). For example, an academic unit (College, school, department) would be credited for research funding attributed to a faculty member in that unit regardless of the center or institute in which the research is conducted or whether the research is conducted in a center or institute at all. A center or institute receives credit and indirect return based on the assignment of the grant itself.

Because of the benefits that major centers and institutes provide including pooling of resources for equipment, support to grants, critical mass, stature, etc., an individual faculty member's research productivity can be significantly enhanced. By encouraging faculty members to work in centers and institutes, deans and department chairs can help enhance the research productivity of the faculty member and ultimately their academic unit. All external funding garnered by the faculty of an academic unit, regardless of the center in which each faculty member conducts research, is credited to the academic unit; this is important for national rankings and internal evaluations. All external funding attributed to a center or institute is assigned to them as well.

A center or institute that achieves a certain stature will be named a Center for Research Designated Center (CDC). In the remainder of this document, we describe the attributes of a CDC and the process for being so named.

2. Attributes of a KUCR Designated Center

Simply stated, a CDC should be an organized research center that is, or soon could be, world-class. One definition of a world-class center is that no national or international meeting in the area on which the center focuses would be held without representation from the center. At KU, we envision CDCs as the organizational entities that bring together the diversity of individuals from across the campus to conduct research efforts that are part of a common mega-theme.

Certain benefits accrue to a CDC. Each CDC is eligible for an increased percentage of indirect return, the CDC director is an automatic member of the Executive Council of Directors, and in general each CDC enjoys increased attention.

In order to be named a CDC, a research unit must first be officially recognized by the Vice Chancellor for Research and Public Service as a research unit. In other words, for any unit to qualify as a CDC, it must first be an official KU research unit.

Beyond this, the attributes that an official research unit must have in order to be named a CDC are as follows:

1. Primary research focus. A CDC should be devoted exclusively or at least primarily to research. The principal activities of a CDC should involve scholarly and creative activities and dissemination of the results through publications and other means.
2. Prestige. A CDC should have significant national/international prestige as judged for example by qualified outsiders. Another measure of prestige is the production of publications in refereed journals, books, and other scholarly and creative works. Center members should present papers or give performances at prestigious national and international venues and should serve as editors and reviewers of journals, conferences, and the like.
3. Large volume of external funding. External funding is critical to building a program of sustainable research. External funding is also an excellent validation of the quality of a researcher's work. In order to qualify as a CDC, the unit should attract a large amount of external funding both in absolute terms and in terms of funding per researcher. In all cases, what constitutes "large" depends on the theme of the CDC. Units in well-funded areas should be at, or able to reasonably target in the future, $10 million in annual external funding expenditures. Units in areas that are typically not well funded would have lower thresholds accordingly. The key is critical mass. Obtaining funding for the sake of funding is inappropriate, and in all cases it is assumed that external funding is relevant and truly supports the researcher's program.
4. Return on investment. There will be investment in the CDCs. In turn, a CDC must provide a significant return on investment. Financial return can be measured for example by the total of external funds attracted and indirect return generated. Other measures of return include faculty members winning prestigious awards and the success of the students going through the CDC in obtaining positions in their field.
5. Interdisciplinary. Strength will accrue to the truly interdisciplinary units. "Interdisciplinary" must reach further than narrow boundaries, i.e. distinctions within an academic department. CDC themes that truly touch several schools and even campuses represent interdisciplinary efforts, but other measures could be used. In general, a qualified outside observer should be able to easily judge whether a unit is interdisciplinary or not.
6. Benefit to the researchers. Researchers should want to join a CDC, because it provides benefits that they could not otherwise realize. It is the synergism that successful centers create through pooling and sharing of resources, infrastructure, and critical mass that makes them powerful as opposed to being merely a collection of people calling themselves a center. A CDC must "look and feel" like a research center. The infrastructure that a CDC provides to the researchers could range from a full service center like LSI that provides proposal services, accounting, appointments, hiring, space management, etc. to one that uses KUCR for many of these services but provides space management, CDC administration, sharing of resources, and clerical support.
7. Academic ties. While university research has great benefit to society both in terms of expanding human knowledge and in fueling the economic engine of the nation, the fundamental reason for conducting university research is learning. Research with no ties to the academic mission of the university should be questioned. Graduate students, and in many cases undergraduate students, should be active participants in the research activities of a CDC. The bulk of the researchers in the centers should be full-time faculty members, faculty members with split appointments in the CDC and one or more academic units, or full-time CDC funded researchers with courtesy appointments in one or more academic units.

3. Becoming a CDC

Successful centers often begin with the vision of a single individual. In any case, once a group of faculty members, students, and possibly other researchers have come together, they can request recognition by the Vice Chancellor for Research and Public Service as an affiliated center. KUCR will then consider investments in the center to help nurture its development. Once the center has become firmly established, the center can petition the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Public Service to be named a CDC. All directors of CDCs report to the Vice Chancellor who has delegated the day-to-day responsibility to the Associate Vice Chancellor.

Once a CDC is named, it must continue to satisfy the requirements for becoming a CDC in the first place. All KUCR Designated Centers will be reviewed at regular intervals.

In those cases where researchers wish to not be part of a large center, there are still customary avenues open for research support and recognition through the KU Center for Research. Principal investigators have the option, for example, of receiving a return of overhead themselves, although smaller than the return to a CDC. In addition, internal resources such as the General Research Fund and matching funds are available to all faculty members. The creation of CDCs is not meant to be exclusive but rather to provide a way of achieving a critical mass, focus, and synergistic strength in major KU research thrusts. All research and creative activity is highly valued at the University of Kansas.

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Questions? Please contact:
Linda Crawford
785-864-7298 |lcrawford@ku.edu
Assistant to the Vice Provost | Office of Research and Graduate Studies