U.S. News: What advice would you offer to other institutions looking to increase their research funding at this fraught time?
Rao: Finding more team science awards and competing for larger, university-wide research center grants is the best place to start.
- These more complex opportunities support faculty with short-term, transdisciplinary goals – which can be more quickly adapted as new opportunities spring up – that result in much larger impact than individual awards.
- Areas where you already have research expertise and that align with national priorities will allow you to quickly pull teams together.
- This encourages faculty to be in the mindset of collaborating.
- Externally, sharing our mission has been so important in our ability to establish relationships with legislators, research funders and other universities to help diversify our funding streams and better align our research focuses with community needs.
U.S. News: This past year has seen upheaval for research projects and funding at universities around the country. What has happened at VCU?
VCU Enterprise Marketing and Communications
Michael Rao, Ph.D., is president of Virginia Commonwealth University.
- We saw significant increases in both research funding ($568 million) and expenditures ($524 million) last year, setting VCU records for each and spanning disciplines like medicine, arts, education and more.
- Like most universities across the country, VCU had a few federally funded research projects cancelled last year. But this represented less than 3% of our overall sponsored funding, 40% of which comes from the federal government.
- The rest of our funding portfolio comes from state and local government, industry, foundations and philanthropy.
- We have been working diligently to support affected researchers in the form of appeals and potential bridge funding, when possible. We are also working with our sister institutions in Virginia, our local and statewide representatives and federal agencies to fill the gaps for our research enterprise.
U.S. News: How has VCU been able to accelerate its research during difficult times?
Rao: Just more than six years ago, we implemented an ambitious and reimagined research strategic plan. It emphasized transdisciplinary research and addressing society’s grand challenges in Virginia, the country and world, which positioned us to better compete for awards in areas which were seeing growth in funding opportunities.
- A doubling of our research expenditures and sponsored funding, placing us among the top 10% of research institutions in the country.
- An ability to more consistently fund those areas that are part of our strategic focus.
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Perhaps most importantly, by building our diverse research funding portfolio around the needs of the communities we serve, we can be competitive for awards where impact is the greatest.
- With more than a quarter of our entire student body now engaged in research, our faculty has introduced research to students earlier in their academic careers, on-campus research opportunities have increased, and student-led research has continued its upward growth.
- Meanwhile, faculty who interact with local communities benefitting from their research are often exposed to additional funding opportunities by thinking about the problems in new ways.
