Research@KU

Research Summit a Success

Jim Roberts, Vice Provost for Research, discusses the first-ever KU Research Summit.

I want to thank everyone who participated in the KU Research Summit on January 16.  Nearly 175 faculty and staff braved the arctic weather that morning.  I hope you felt it was time well spent.

We received a lot of useful feedback from the session facilitators, and excellent evaluations from participants.  We are still reviewing all of this material, because it offers productive guidance for KU in general and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research in particular.

A number of observations and suggestions were offered at the summit.  One has already been implemented.  Paul Terranova, my counterpart at the KU Medical Center, and I are creating a bi-campus task force to identify and eliminate remaining barriers to research collaboration and integration.  One outcome will be a handbook, available electronically and updated regularly.

Other useful suggestions include:

1. Develop a mentoring infrastructure for junior faculty who are seeking and managing their first grant;
2. Encourage faculty to incorporate more undergraduate research in the classroom; and
3. Seek more funding for graduate education from all sources, including KU Endowment; and
4. Work to overcome any negative image problem the state of Kansas has in other parts of the country.

The summit grew out of a discussion last November at the KU Research Convocation.  The Faculty Senate proposed the idea and was most helpful in organizing the meeting in a short period of time.  Thanks to Ruth Ann Atchley, Rick Hale, Jack Brown, and Molly Mulloy for their support and involvement.  Joshua Rosenbloom, Kevin Boatright, Meredith Porter, and Megan Gannon assisted from my staff.

I also wish to thank Provost Lariviere, who gave the opening remarks, and the session facilitators, who introduced each of the 24 sessions and helped guide the discussion:  Ruth Ann Atchley, John Augusto, Mary Banwart, Jim Baxendale, Ron Borchardt, John Colombo, Joe Evans, Hume Feldman, Victor Frost, Susan Gauch, Rick Hale, Paul Hanson, Bob Hanzlik, Roy Jensen, Susan Kemper, Stan Lombardo, Erik Lundquist, Steven Maynard-Moody, Tom McDonald, Wally Meyer, Joane Nagel, Carey Novak, Jim Orr, Bill Sharp, Joe Steinmetz, Steve Warren, Judy Wu, and Keith Yehle.

The reaction to the summit was so strong and so positive that we intend to continue the conversation next January, right before the start of classes.  We will work with the Faculty Senate and the KU Medical Center and will share more information later in the year.

Jim Roberts
Vice Provost for Research