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Research Notes

Monthly UWM Report columns by Colin Scanes

Colin Scanes, Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development and Dean of the Graduate School.

No columns in January, July, and August

November 2009

Measure for measure

A friend and former provost at another university used to say that public universities are one of the great American contributions to world civilization, with their role in education, research and public service. I have long considered that the platonic ideal of faculty is the teacher-researcher who also plays a role in public service to the community, region, nation or professional organization.

Measuring is something we in universities do every day, and predominantly it is something we do well. However, I wonder how we really should take the measure of what we do, and of what we accomplish.

How should we measure teaching?

Central to our activities and our mission is teaching. We do it in classrooms, labs and studios; in person and increasingly online. We can measure teaching effort (input) by number of courses taught or by student credits generated, but how do we assess the quality, the outcomes and the impact? We can use student evaluations. They are arguably a good barometer of poor teaching, but I am not sure if they are as useful in determining degrees of good teaching.

I would contend that additional metrics are important to ascertain the effectiveness of teaching. Outputs of effective teaching include the knowledge or skills or competencies acquired, critical thinking skills, tolerance and the like. The totality of an academic program is, first, did the student graduate, and, second, what is the success of the graduate?

How should we measure research?

We can measure the inputs for research. Inputs include the countless hours of focused work—at times heartache—in the creative process. There is commitment, perspiration and tenacity overcoming obstacles, and even difficult colleagues (at other institutions, I hasten to add), and the striving for truth. These are not measurable per se, but other inputs to the process of research are.

Research expenditures are commonly used as a metric of research and drive rankings by the National Science Foundation. However, funding is a crude measure of the process of research. Funding allows recruitment of graduate students, postdocs and technicians, as well as the acquisition of stateof- the-art equipment, databases, critical supplies and travel to collaborators or the sites of original documents. But funding does not equal impact.

The tangible output of research includes theses or dissertations, a paper, a book, a performance, an exhibition or a grant proposal. These outputs are evaluated by our peers. The paper goes through peer review, the book is accepted or rejected by a publisher, the performance and exhibition are reviewed, and the grant is funded or refused.

Peer review is a mechanism of judging quality, but it is not perfect. I frequently relate the story of a paper I submitted to a medium-tier journal which was rejected. Once the initial disappointment abated, I rewrote the paper and submitted it to a higher- tier journal and, after "to-ing and fro-ing," it was not only accepted but was featured on the cover of the journal!

The impact of the research depends on its dissemination. Theses or dissertations are not usually a prime method of communication. The lasting impact of a dissertation is usually a job for the newly minted graduate, with little wider impact.

By contrast, refereed papers are the preferred method of communication in many disciplines. What is the impact of a refereed paper? There are indices of the number of times the work is cited. This is a useful approach but has recently been criticized. Books, and the more ephemeral performances and exhibitions, can be evaluated by reviews.

Arguably the most important consideration of the impact of research is how it has changed thinking in the discipline or interdisciplinary area.

Another index of the quality of research is the accumulated reputation of the researcher, which can be measured as formal national and international recognition. We have outstanding researchers at UWM who have international reputations. However, I ask myself, are we doing enough to recognize our colleagues with nominations to be fellows of professional societies or members of national academies, or for other prestigious awards that not only reflect well on them but also on the entire department, school/college and university?

There are no easy answers to the measurement of teaching or research, but I do urge each of you to think about multiple measures of output and quality. Let us celebrate outstanding teaching where we see evidence of it, even if the evidence is less systematic than we would like. Similarly, as we push to increase research activity as measured by funding, we should all keep sight of the fact that impact is what we will be remembered for, not process or even effort.

Next month I'd like to share my thoughts on the role of community service, economic development and leadership in the modern university.

October 2009

Good news on research expenditures

One of the indices of a research university is research expenditures. I am delighted to report that UWM had a record level of research expenditures last year, as exemplified by the following:

• Record total research expenditures.
• Record externally funded research expenditures.
• Record federally funded research expenditures.
• Record externally funded research expenditures for six schools/colleges.

The changes in research expenditures over time are summarized in Table 1. There were 13.4 percent increases over the previous year in externally funded research expenditures and 15.8 percent increases in federally funded research expenditures.

The success of UWM was due, in my opinion, to the strength and hard work of the faculty, research academic staff and students supported by the strategies employed to stimulate funded research, such as the Research Growth Initiative and the Research Fellows program.

Congratulations UWM (or should I say Go Panthers)! Federally funded research expenditures doubled in seven years. This is an achievement well worth celebrating. Moreover, the record was achieved prior to the arrival of the additional faculty hired with DIN funds in the last biennium.

Tables 2 and 3 show total and externally funded research expenditures, respectively, in the schools and colleges for June 2007, July 2008 and August 2009. Schools and colleges with the greatest increases in externally funded research expenditures between May 2006 and August 2009 were the following:

• Letters and Science with $3.3 million
• Health Sciences with $1.7 million
• Nursing with $1.6 million
• Education with $1.4 million
• Engineering and Applied Science with $0.9 million

A caveat

Research expenditures are but one measure of a research university. My office will be collecting other data that exemplifies the quality of the institution and its faculty, staff and students. I am always happy to receive feedback on what we should be emphasizing and how we improve the research culture and infrastructure.

September 2009

Moving toward our aspirations

As the summer nears its end and my nightly walks seem to feel autumnal, I am pondering the start of a new school year. As a nation, we see division, with a lack of civil discourse, on health care. As a state institution, we see budget cuts, furloughs and a rollback of a salary increase.

Is all the news bad? I would look at the glass being both "half empty" and "half full." Where is the good news? Examples of major successes in the past few months include the following:

• Two new schools (Freshwater Sciences and Public Health) have been approved, together with a major capital plan for new buildings included in the 2009-11 biennium.
• Karen Gunderman (Department of Visual Art in the Peck School of the Arts) received the first prize in the IX Bienal Internacional de Cerámica in Aveiro, Portugal.
• Faculty members have been successful in highly competitive federal grant programs with, for instance, both professors Lei Ying (Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Applied Science) and Stefan Schnitzer (Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Letters and Science) receiving the prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award.
• Johannes Britz, dean of the School of Information Studies, was honored for his work on African e-governance (see article below).

Research expenditures for 2008-09 reached a new record with a total of $54 million. This is the result of tremendous effort by principal investigators. It will impact UWM by supporting both graduate and undergraduate students doing research, and facilitate research publications and thereby reputation.

The research expenditures will also support economic development. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that for every $1 million of research expenditures, 36 jobs are created. UWM research has an impact—on the disciplines; on the people and communities in the region; on the environment; on economic development, with almost 2,000 jobs created; and on the reputation of UWM.

The Faculty Senate Research Policy Committee reported in May on research and its support at UWM. Clearly, we need to move the research infrastructure to the next level. We are committed to the Office of Sponsored Programs providing the level of support required in a research university. We made progress on that over the summer with a new interim director. We are seeking the advice of people across the campus on what needs to be done to augment our research infrastructure.

We have a cadre of very strong faculty. We are not always as good at recognizing the strengths that we have. A thought that might be worth exploring is whether we can do more to nominate our colleagues for national awards. I am always willing to help.

A wise faculty member stated to me recently that we are far better than our reputation, and our aspirations are significantly higher than where we really are.

We need to address both improving our reputation and moving our research programs to the next level. We are indeed making progress.

June 2009

FY 2008-09: Another year of progress for UWM

May is a time when we see our students walk across the stage at Commencement. Many are grinning ear to ear. Some are cool. All are proud to have accomplished so much, due to the help and dedication of UWM's fine faculty and academic staff. Families and friends are in abundance. It is a joy to behold.

There are so many achievements of the UWM family that sometimes get neglected. I would like to point to a number of these.

Based on the first three quarters of FY 2008-09, UWM saw a 14 percent increase in externally funded research expenditures compared to the same period the previous year. Increases were highest in the following schools and colleges:

• Engineering with a 52.7 percent increase
• Education with a 38.8 percent increase
• Health Sciences with a 37.2 percent increase
• Lubar School of Business with a 31.1 percent increase

Congratulations to the faculty and staff. This achievement involves the hard work and creativity of so many people at UWM. It means that there are more graduate students being supported with external funds, and we are making a greater impact on the regional economy.

The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that for every $1 million in research expenditures, 36 jobs are created. The $2.9 million in increased expenditures over nine months equates to $3.9 million over 12 months, and thus UWM research generating an additional 139 jobs in the Greater Milwaukee economy at a time when this is particularly important.

It is important to recognize our successes in research and scholarship. We are pleased to see that UWM, in collaboration with the Medical College of Wisconsin, will be receiving a prestigious NIEHS Center award related to Children's Environmental Health. I commend David Petering and Jeanne Hewitt for their leadership and academic excellence.

I am delighted to report that during AY 2008-09, two more doctoral degree programs were approved at the UW System level, namely:

• Doctorate in Nursing Practice (DNP)
• Ph.D. in Environmental and Occupational Health

This brings the total number of doctoral programs at UWM to 29. I add my sincere thanks to the many faculty and staff who worked so hard and effectively to bring this to fruition.

May 2009

Interdisciplinary and disciplinary research

My theme is that a strong research university requires BOTH very strong disciplines (often synonymous with departments) and interdisciplinary research institutes/centers.

A hallmark of the development of the best research universities in North America and Europe with major externally funded research expenditures is the development of interdisciplinary research institutes/centers. The big questions facing us today require the diverse approaches of the natural and social sciences and engineering together, frequently with a role for the humanities and the arts.

Not only do faculty members from different departments and different schools/colleges come together in a structure, but also potentially in a single facility.

A hallmark of human civilization is scholarship—the generation of new knowledge and its study. From at least the time of the classical Greeks, scholars were respected and were the teachers of the young (and often not-so-young). Each scholar had an expertise going far beyond what we think of today as a “discipline.” The knowledge of the classical Greeks and Romans became the basis of Western civilization.

However, this statement misses the profound importance of the Arab civilizations. These visionaries not only ensured that the knowledge was not lost, but also developed new knowledge and even new fields, including algebra and alchemy (leading to chemistry). (Parenthetically, it might be mentioned that the words “algebra” and “alchemy,” together with “alcohol,” come from the Arab language).

There was a return to scholarship and the arts in Western Europe during the Renaissance with the rediscovery of the classics. Increasingly, disciplines became more focused and functioned like “clubs”—if you were in one “club,” you were not joining another. Some academic departments even today will only appoint a new faculty member if the candidate has gone through the “right” disciplinary training.

During the Enlightenment, there was a focus toward a “reductionist” approach and the development of strong disciplines. This process accelerated with the development of the great American public universities (and analogous development in Western Europe). This resulted in a proliferation of disciplines, particularly in the social sciences and applied sciences/engineering. Disciplines might be analogized as “towers” without “bridges” linking across. Interdisciplinary research centers/institutes establish multiple links between disciplines.

UWM has strong disciplines. Where are we on interdisciplinary research centers/institutes? First, we are making progress. The new schools of Public Health and Freshwater Sciences await approval by the legislature. They are great examples of the importance of research and graduate education that is interdisciplinary. The councils on these two schools are moving forward rapidly, developing curricula and other plans. I am delighted to see faculty from many schools and colleges who want to be involved.

Can we do more to stimulate interdisciplinary research? Of course we can—and we must. I look to the strong faculty and staff at UWM to send suggestions on ways to foster interdisciplinary research. Your ideas would be greatly appreciated.

April 2009

Taking pride in UW–Milwaukee

How often do we look out on a gray, cold morning and—thinking of the national economy and the possibility of budget cuts—become depressed?

At times like those, I like to consider how fortunate I am to be at UWM and to see the progress being made.

There are some very interesting ideas emerging as the Master Plan starts to come together. We had excellent participation by faculty and staff in the “grantsmanship training” and in the NSF Day—many thanks to all involved.

New graduate programs are moving forward based on the diligence of groups of faculty with oversight from governance committees. These curricular additions will stand UWM well in the years to come. I am very impressed by the many faculty and staff who are looking at how their research, instruction and public service can use federal stimulus funding.

I am bringing attention and my hearty congratulations to the great faculty and staff at UWM, with a number of points of pride for UWM listed below:

• According to information just released by the National Science Foundation, there is some good news. With over $40 million in total research expenditures in the sciences and engineering, UWM is now ranked 179th nationally (and 78th for institutions without a medical school). This compares to $34 million and a ranking of 190th in FY 2006. Moreover, for the first time, UWM, with $18.3 million in federally funded research expenditures, is now ranked in the top 200 research universities (at No. 200). This compares to $15.9 million and 214th in FY ’06.
• A cover story in the prestigious journal Nature Physics featured the research of a UWM team. This team, including UWM Distinguished Professor Abbas Ourmazd, Professor Dilano Saldin and research scientists Russell Fung, Peter Schwander and Valentin Shneerson, are to be congratulated on this accomplishment.
• James Cook has seen two drugs licensed to local pharmaceutical companies by the UWM Research Foundation. To see one technology licensed can be a lifetime achievement, but two in 12 months is truly amazing!
• George W. Hanson in UWM’s College of Engineering and Applied Science has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
• Norma Lang in UWM’s College of Nursing is a member of the Institute of Medicine (one of the U.S.’s three National Academies).
• Mark D. Schwartz, professor of geography, is leading the U.S.A. National Phenology Network.
• J. Rudi Strickler, another UWM Distinguished Professor, received the John Martin Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO). This was for research published in 1981 that led to fundamental shifts in thinking.

March 2009

Moving UWM's externally funded research programs to the next level

UW–Milwaukee has been making significant strides forward in research. For instance, between 2001-02 and 2007-08, externally funded research expenditures (in accounts 133 and 150) grew by 69.2 percent, with the inflation rate for the period being 19.2 percent (see Table 1 below).

Some schools and colleges more than tripled their externally funded research expenditures, including Education, Health Sciences, Nursing and Information Studies. Letters and Science's expenditures were up by $3.2 million.

After discussions with the governance groups, I am delighted to announce a series of initiatives to move UWM's externally funded research program to the next level.

1. Sponsored Program Services (Grant Awards Management): The first initiative involves changes to how we support faculty and staff submitting proposals and managing grants.

• Pre-Award Services involve submitting proposals and also negotiating with government agencies or companies.
• Post-Award Services encompass invoicing agencies and companies for expenditures, working with agencies and companies to close out of projects, and ensuring the expenditures are within those allowable.

There have been concerns on the level of service. We have been able to add staff to both of these areas and fill vacant positions. There will be matching funds for some schools and colleges to improve their infrastructure-supporting externally funded research, instruction and public service projects.

To further address concerns, we will have new leadership in Research Services and Administration. To go with the shift in service orientation, a new director will be recruited and the name of the office will be changed to Sponsored Program Services.

2. Web-Based Tools for Faculty and Research Staff: The Sponsored Program Services Web site is being revised and includes tools for researchers, such as tools to facilitate budget preparation and the names of specific people (together with phone numbers and e-mail addresses) to help on proposal development, proposal submission or problems with budgets after submission.

3. Research Growth Initiative (RGI): There is strong evidence that projects funded by the RGI are then successful in competing for external funds. This provides evidence for the integrity of RGI but not necessarily its impact. We recently examined the success of faculty and research staff on their success after receipt of RGI funding (see Table 2 below).

Investigators who were funded in the first two rounds of the RGI show a marked increase in external grant awards after funding. It shows that internal research funding is critical in generating preliminary data such that researchers can successfully compete at the national level.

It would seem reasonable that the RGI should continue. We need additional mechanisms to move the externally funded research programs to the next level.

4. New initiatives: Funds are available to faculty and research staff to visit government agencies, businesses, industries and foundations to discuss a forthcoming grant proposal.

5. Multi- or interdisciplinary centers and institutes: Support will be available to multi- or interdisciplinary centers and institutes. Such support will include a negotiated increase in overhead return (or the delta overhead) if externally funded research expenditures reach a goal level (the greater the increase, the greater the return!).

This will be available for existing or new research centers/institutes with an interest in increasing externally funded research and a concrete plan to accomplish it. This type of arrangement has already been set in place for the Center for Addiction and Behavioral Health Research and the Laboratory for Surface Studies.

6. Professional Development/Grantsmanship: The keys to a great proposal are the quality of the idea, the preliminary data supporting whether the work proposed is doable and how well the proposal is written.

An unfocused proposal, or one that does not hit all the requirements, will not be funded irrespective of the strength of the idea or the preliminary data.

To facilitate improved proposals, additional and more intensive “grantsmanship” programs will be made available. From personal experience, I know that the work involved and the costs to the institution are so worthwhile. I am delighted that the response from faculty and staff has been outstanding, with over 160 registered for the spring program.

February 2009

Collaboration—a proven successful approach to research

Collaboration can exist between two colleagues in adjacent offices, in different departments or colleges on campus, with researchers in other Milwaukee or Wisconsin institutions, or elsewhere in the U.S. or internationally.

Collaboration adds different disciplinary or sub-disciplinary expertise or different methodological approaches. It is a case where the attributes of the group exceed the sum of the parts, or, to put it another way, where 1 + 1 = 3. In my experience, collaboration generates the following:

• Joint research publications. In many areas of study, there is a continuing trend toward more and more multi-authored publications and very few single- authored publications. Frequently, collaboration generates many more high-impact publications.
• Joint grant applications and funding. There are increased chances of funding as reviewers recognize the strength of the group or team. (This requires a track record of working together.) Moreover, there may well be larger awards received.
• Dual graduate degrees with students spending time at a collaborator's institution. This is advantageous, as the student learns how things are done differently in different places and has two mentors.
• Access to different or even unique equipment or databases.

Critical to the success of collaboration is the need for a commitment to the research group, team or individual collaborator; to strong and effective efforts to communicate; and to sufficient flexibility when addressing challenges.

Are there examples at UWM of successful collaboration in research? I would say emphatically YES! It is indeed difficult to list the many examples, but here are a few:

• The National Science Foundation LIGO project that is looking for gravitational waves involves a groups of researchers at MIT, Cal Tech, Louisiana State University and UWM (in Physics).
• The recently funded National Institute of Environmental Health Center involving researchers at UWM (in Chemistry, Nursing and the WATER Institute) and the Children's Research Institute.
• The recently re-funded program by Cerner involving researchers in UWM's College of Nursing and Aurora Health Care.
• The neuroscience projects involving faculty from the Psychology and Biological Sciences departments.

Can we take collaboration to the next level? Of course. Should we? Undoubtedly, we should! As we move UWM's research program forward, there is an increasing need for multi-institution proposals and multi-/interdisciplinary proposals. What we lack is enough multi-/interdisciplinary research centers or institutes with a support infrastructure. In many universities, such research centers or institutes are supported by return on overhead together with seed support from the university.

The former CEO of GE, Jack Walsh, is reputed to have said, "Innovate or die." Parenthetically, I think this is as true for Milwaukee and UWM as it is for industries and communities. To paraphrase Walsh and to summarize this piece, I could say, "Collaborate or die."

December 2008

Entrepreneurism in academia: great examples at UWM

Entrepreneurism by individual faculty, staff and students typifies the best of academia in the North America. I had the chance to see a number of great examples of this in practice at UWM, and in this column I am paying tribute to my colleagues involved.

The Graduate School is moving toward all applications to programs going electronic in 2009-10. At a recent meeting of the graduate program representatives, we announced this and asked whether any programs would like to take part in a beta test this year. I hoped that we might have one or two programs. We got six volunteers at the meeting, with additional volunteers after the meeting. I was so impressed and very thankful.

Faculty members are moving ahead with developing a number of new graduate programs: master's and doctoral programs in education, freshwater sciences, nursing, public health and social sciences. To improve communication, an image illustrating the progress and time lines has been placed on the Graduate School Web site.

The cumulative efforts of individual faculty members result in the reputation of UWM. One metric for research is research expenditures. Congratulations to the faculty of the College of Health Sciences for successfully competing nationally for grants and contracts, with over $1.2 million awarded in the first three months of 2008-09. Specifically, I would like to recognize the following five individual faculty members: Hong Yu, Scott Strath and Ann Swartz for new research grants from the National Institutes of Health, and Mark Johnston for a research grant from the U.S. Department of Education, together with John Ndon for an instructional grant from the National Institutes of Health.

November 2008

The importance of funded research

"UW-Milwaukee has the primary objectives of expanding our research portfolio and providing higher education access to the broadest possible audience" —Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago

Expanding the research portfolio encompasses increasing research awards and expenditures. Why is there an emphasis on funded research? We all can come up with our own list, and I am very interested in the views of the faculty, staff and students. I would put forward a number of reasons:

• Research universities are listed in rank order for research expenditures by the National Science Foundation. There is prestige with ranking, and this influences recruitment of faculty and, in some cases, also students.

• Research expenditures generate economic development, with the U.S. Department of Commerce estimating that for every $1 million in research expenditures, 36 jobs are created. It is no surprise, therefore, to see Dane County show such strong economic growth.

  This is consistent with the Chancellor's vision: ". . . this University serves as a crucial catalyst for the economic well-being of the City of Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin."

• External funds can be used for assistantships, fellowships and other support for graduate students and for undergraduate students.
• External funds can be used for research assistantships providing nationally competitive stipends and hence facilitating recruiting of outstanding graduate students.
• External funding can support the purchase and maintenance of sophisticated equipment and core facilities.
• Funding facilitates bringing to UWM outstanding visiting faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who add to the vibrancy of the campus.
• External funding provides overhead funds to UWM. These are flexible and can be used to improve many aspects of the University.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has seen some increase in research funding in the last few years thanks to the diligence of the faculty, staff and even some students. With the DIN funding of new faculty positions, much more is possible and much more is expected. Seeking outside funds takes a tremendous effort of time, intellect and perseverance.

"Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th." —Julie Andrews

Proposals are often met with a disappointing rejection or high rating but not in the fundable range. There are, however, high rewards of successfully seeking external funding to our career development. We are there to help! Example include the following:

• We will be offering a series of seminars and workshops to assist faculty and staff writing proposals.
• The new Graduate School Web site will provide new tools to assist P.I.s.
• We have additional people aiding submission and account for proposals.

I am asking for your advice as to what we should be doing, what we should do better and what can we stop doing.