Bold move launches plan to focus efforts in addressing nation's most pressing needs
DENTON (UNT), Texas - The University of North Texas will invest at least $25 million in collaborative research in a sweeping effort to strengthen the state's economy, bolster research and develop technology vital to addressing today's most pressing needs.
The investment begins this year with the development of six collaborative research clusters and the recruitment of world-renowned faculty. The clusters will enhance and expand the innovative research already underway at UNT by bringing together faculty from across colleges and disciplines to work together, exchange ideas and explore solutions.
As the main thrust of the plan, the university expects to hire several new faculty members for each cluster. Many of the new faculty hires will be senior level researchers with national and international reputations.
"UNT is well-known for its excellence in the arts. Through this investment, we will expand our research excellence and raise our reputation as a public research university that competes at the top-level in everything we do," said President Gretchen M. Bataille, who publicly announced the investment plan Tuesday during the university's annual convocation.
Among the clusters' wide-ranging and high-profile initiatives will be discovering more effective ways to treat conditions such as autism, cancer and heart disease; developing more durable jet engines; investigating molecular plant signals that could lead to innovations impacting many different industries and needs; and exploring new ways to support and improve environmental sustainability.
UNT's first six clusters capitalize on the national reputation and expertise of researchers in several important areas.
In addition, two areas of interdisciplinary research will receive seed funding to encourage further development: Human Health and Sustainable Environment, which will research how environmental risks accumulate and affect health; and Multi-Scale Damage, Lifetime Prediction and Design of Materials, which will study damage caused by aging in various physical materials in hopes of creating new, more resilient materials for aerospace applications, automobiles and prosthetic devices.
Also, as part of the plan, UNT will create a new multi-institutional research center focused on immigrant studies.
UNT took an unusual approach in allocating its resources to these interdisciplinary research areas. Rather than administering a top-down approach, UNT called for faculty to develop and submit proposals last January that laid out plans to address specific research problems by working across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
The UNT Office of Research and Economic Development directed the cluster selection process and 11 faculty members served on a review committee chaired by Vish Prasad, vice president for research and economic development. The committee assessed 37 proposals and recommended to Provost Wendy K. Wilkins that six clusters receive full funding, that two receive seed funding and that a third be considered for center development.
"We're focusing our investment in areas that will produce results," Wilkins said. "UNT will be the leader in these areas, and we're confident enough of our ability to succeed that we are willing to invest millions of dollars."
The clusters are an integral part of UNT's comprehensive effort to expand research across the university. "We are very committed to expanding UNT's research contributions and I am grateful to the committed faculty members who helped make successfully launching this plan a reality," Prasad said. "This initiative will attract premier research faculty to UNT and allow us to dramatically improve our already significant contributions to advances in knowledge as well as our research funding."
Clusters will take advantage of and expand the university's research infrastructure, such as the Center for Advanced Research and Technology, a $15-million, federally-funded collection of rare, high-powered microscopes and other high-tech materials characterization equipment at Discovery Park, UNT's 290-acre research park that opened in 2004. Research in many of these clusters will lead to new technologies contributing to incubation and start-up of new companies at Discovery Park.
In recent years, UNT has made significant strides to support science and research, including the opening of a 105,000-square foot Chemistry Building in 2004 and next month's ground breaking of the new, 81,000-square-foot Life Sciences Complex, which will house biochemistry, molecular biology, plant science and developmental physiology and genetics.
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