Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Coping with Bleak Budgets: View From a Vice President for Research Kelvin K. Droegemeier Vice President for Research University of Oklahoma AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy April 26-27, 2012

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Assist faculty across all disciplines within a comprehensive research university in achieving their scholarly goals and dreams – Help locate and create opportunity – Help build collaborations internally and externally – Help define research program trajectories and prepare competitive proposals – Provide financial and other resources – Create incentives and rewards – Promulgate useful policies and reduce administrative burden – Ensure tight integration of instruction and research – Shine a bright light on achievement – Recruit and retain the best faculty and students – to continue the cycle My Role as VP for Research 2

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Define Bleak… 3

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Although no silver bullets exist and the overall R&D pie is fixed in size, several important principles can be helpful to individual institutions in coping with budget realities Some investment at all levels How to Cope? 4

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Focused strategic investment in areas of greatest strength How to Cope? 5

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA How to Cope?

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Fostering collaboration and leveraging (key is environment/culture) NSF is a wonderful example (e.g., I-CORPS, OneNSF, INSPIRE, CREATIV) Regional initiatives, university consortia (e.g., ORAU, SURA) Intra-state collaboration (OneOklahoma) Big projects (e.g., OSTP Grand Challenges) and centers Engagement of the social/behavioral/economic sciences Helping faculty see themselves as more than individual entrepreneurs – connected to a broader vision and multi-disciplinary campus enterprise How to Cope? 7

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Providing resources to help faculty develop their research programs and competitive grant proposals Faculty do not automatically know how to do this!! Universities have lots of resources for students – need to not forget faculty! Alignments with national initiatives and priorities Expanding R&D opportunity space; at OU, into… Defense/security/intelligence (DSI) Applied work via Center for Applied R&D (CARD) Becoming involved in fixing key national policies (e.g., F&A recovery, cost sharing) How to Cope? 8

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Research in the classroom: Undergraduate Research and modern STEM pedagogy (engaged learning) Incentives for achievement Salary bonuses for awards/honors, large grants, prizes, performances, exhibits Removal of constraints on internal seed funding Larger pots of one-time internal seed funding (a little can go a long way) De-investing in or shutting down facilities (seriously?) How to Cope? 9

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Building more (and more effective) linkages with industry Key to innovation and wealth creation Key to economic diversification in states Important for workforce development Universities weren’t structured to do this (philosophically or administratively) but are improving! Challenge: Portraying/marketing institutional capabilities How to Cope? 10

Office of the Vice President for Research N ORMAN C AMPUS AND N ORMAN C AMPUS P ROGRAMS AT OU-T ULSA Political support for research is VERY strong… …but we have a serious budget crisis in this country …and a serious challenge regarding the value proposition of higher education We need to portray the real costs and real value of research and education We can’t eat our seed corn: we must be more effective as an enterprise at telling our story but also realistic in our expectations Research and innovation need to be an authentic partnership among academia, the Federal government and private industry Earmarks likely to return but don’t count on them! We can achieve more with less by working together Where Do We Go From Here? 11