18 October 2022
Dear Oregon State Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Research Impact and Advancement Academy on Friday, October 21. This Academy is designed by the new Office for Research Advancement to bolster and enhance the ability for OSU researchers to successfully lead and compete for large collaborative proposals. It will provide a social learning structure where faculty can develop the knowledge, skills, practices, and relationships to successfully lead large transdisciplinary proposals, and execute and manage funded solutions-focused research programs.
In the inaugural year of the Academy, 20 Fellows have been selected in close cooperation with the Deans and Associate Deans for Research. They represent expertise across colleges and a wide range of the research strengths at OSU. The Fellows will enter the Academy for a two-year program starting out with a series of ten workshops for the first year. In these workshops, they will develop mindsets and frameworks for leading large transdisciplinary research efforts and will be provided the tools and practices of leading this type of work. During the Spring term, the Fellows will develop a multi-year plan and proposal for success and pitch for seed funds to pursue those plans. The Academy will be recurring with a new cohort of faculty every academic year.
Integrated into this first Academy cohort will be ten Valley Fellows concentrating on solutions to significant biohealth challenges. The biohealth sciences focuses on human health in a holistic manner, by identifying mechanisms and health risks, with emphasis on optimizing health through both prevention and treatment. Proposal development will be aiming for NIH and other funding opportunities focused on biohealth sciences. The Valley Fellows Program is funded through a generous grant from the Wayne and Gladys Valley Foundation.
Finally, the Office of Research Advancement is rolling out additional workshops and organizing several campus conversations. In total, seven Research Office Campus Conversations (ROCC) and two to three Research Office Lunch and Learn (ROLL) workshop series will be organized each academic year. Topics include ‘Demystifying USDA Funding’, ‘Going for Large Center/Facility Proposals’, ‘Integrating JEDI into Proposal Writing’ and ‘New-to-NIH’. In addition, the Research Office Advancement IGNITE series will bring university-wide communities together around broad research themes that are eminently growing in importance and strength at OSU. Topics this coming year include ‘Public Health and Climate Change’, ‘Water Resilience’ and ‘Renewable Clean Energy’.
Our offices are committed to supporting your success in accomplishing our research mission. Together, all of these new activities are in support of further advancing the research enterprise and scholarship at OSU while increasing the impact of our work in the arenas of both transdisciplinary research and scholarship and use-inspired research, two areas where OSU is extremely well positioned to excel and become leaders.
Sincerely,
Edward Feser
Provost and Executive Vice President
Irem Tumer
Vice President for Research