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Goal: Grow (Inter)Disciplinary Research Excellence
Objective: Grow research that positively impacts lives in the commonwealth and beyond
Strategy 6: Expand interdisciplinary, community-engaged, and industry-relevant
research initiatives.
Example Action Steps
- Continue the college’s Research Program Area initiative that builds a community of scholarship around high-impact interdisciplinary research fields (e.g., environmental health sciences, health equity) within the college (through tools ranging from convenings, to events, to strategic hiring) and also creates bridges to like-minded faculty members in other colleges.
- Explore a new college-level partnership with a large national, non-profit behavioral health service provider that will soon be entering the State College market around collaborative research initiatives focused on the applied research priorities articulated by the Centre County neurodevelopmental disabilities community that the organization will be serving.
- One local academic unit will create increased interdisciplinary research collaborations with the College of Information Sciences and Technology around integration of artificial intelligence into assistive technologies, another will work with the Smeal College of Business to create a healthcare division of the Nittany Lion Consulting Group, and a third will launch a Research-to-Practice webinar series.
Targets related to priority University metrics
| University Metrics | Target* |
|---|---|
| Number and value of grants | • Maintain annual total external research expenditures. • Increase annual average number of, and direct expenses included in, external research proposal submissions year-over-year. |
| Stakeholder partnerships and engagement in participatory research | • Increasing engagement with SSRI Community Engaged Research, Action, and Partnerships (CERAP) program (faculty affiliation, participation in convenings, seed grant submissions/awards) |
| Research teams and projects that include cooperative extension | • Increase funded projects involving college faculty and extension faculty investigators. • Increase faculty who are jointly appointed as extension faculty. |
| Number and completion time of advance degrees awarded. | • Increase the number of applications and yield for the college’s professional master’s programs. • Decrease the proportion of the college’s doctoral program graduates who exceed five years time-to-degree. |
*Unless an alternate time-period is specified, target refers to change from the start to the end of the five-year plan implementation period.
Note that percent increases applied to metrics that are themselves percentages are multiplicative not additive (e.g. a 5% increase to a four year graduation rate of 72.1% is 1.05*72.1% or 75.7% not 77.1% (72.1% plus 5 percentage points).
Objective: become a top 15 research university
Strategy 7: Retool research catalysis programming, develop faculty research mentoring programs, implement strategies that cultivate national and international recognition for research-active faculty, and engage in planning to improve dedicated research spaces in the college.
Example Action Steps
- Conduct a college-wide inventory of existing research space, characterizing quality and the degree to which space is built to purpose, creating a prioritization for investment, and articulate with college budget and University space planning efforts (including the campus master-planning effort that is now starting).
- One local academic unit in the college will develop targeted extramural research mentoring plans where the Research PIC will identify a faculty member working an area with funding opportunities available who have limited external support to receive a year of tailored guidance and support.
- One highly-ranked, research active local academic unit in the college will increase the number of faculty members receiving national faculty recognitions by creating a committee that will identify opportunities, review these annually, prompt senior faculty to make nominations, and encourage junior faculty to self-nominate as appropriate.
- The college will conduct a systematic evaluation of current centrally-supported programs to catalyze research (e.g., grant writing course release program, cost share and matching programs, external review honoraria; cross-unit collaborative incentive program), maintain investment in maximally effective programs, and redirect resources from less effective to new programs designed for the current funding environment (e.g., mentoring programs for faculty new to a funder; seed grants promoting diversification of funders, etc.).
Targets related to priority University metrics
| University Metrics | Target* |
|---|---|
| Scholarly Impact measures | • College will maintain its position at the 95thile (of Scholarly Research Impact) in Academic Analytics |
| Prestigious fellowships, awards, and other academic and professional honors Number of faculty discipline-related awards |
• Increase in faculty recognized for research by professional societies and other relevant research organizations. |
| Placement of graduate students post- graduation | • Maintain levels of doctoral graduate post-commencement placement at aca |
*Unless an alternate time-period is specified, target refers to change from the start to the end of the five-year plan implementation period.
Note that percent increases applied to metrics that are themselves percentages are multiplicative not additive (e.g. a 5% increase to a four year graduation rate of 72.1% is 1.05*72.1% or 75.7% not 77.1% (72.1% plus 5 percentage points).