Winners of Research Growth Initiative Awards Announced
Forty-five top-ranked research proposals have been selected as winners in the Research Growth Initiative (RGI), with a further 45 “almost winners” identified as highly promising proposals. Both groups were selected entirely on the basis of independent external reviews by subject-matter experts.
The Research Growth Initiative, unanimously supported by the Faculty Senate and launched in November, provides $14 million in seed money to the winning research projects to enhance their position in national and international competition for extramural funding. The goal is to support the excellent research and scholarship on campus, and help increase UWM's extramural funding for research to $100 million per year.
“All aspects of the Research Growth Initiative process have been very, very impressive,” says UWM Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago. “The high quality of the proposals greatly reinforced our belief that we have excellent researchers here at UWM—particularly among our younger faculty members. It was especially rewarding to learn that independent external reviewers ranked a quarter of our 285 proposals in the top 10 percent of proposals in their respective fields across the United States.”
The reviews were conducted by panels consisting of scholars from some of the top research institutions in the nation, including Cornell, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UW-Madison, the University of Michigan and Yale.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time any campus has conducted an independent assessment of its entire research portfolio on a project-by-project basis,” says Abbas Ourmazd, vice chancellor for research and dean of the Graduate School.
UWM is in the vanguard of a new approach to supporting research: substantial seed-funding investments, as opposed to ad hoc allocations and subsidies, Ourmazd says.
“RGI is an open and objective way of identifying our strengths and investing in them without preconceived notions,” he says. “There is clearly substantial strength in some areas that we were not previously aware of.”
The winning proposals stem from five categories: Arts and Humanities; Life and Health Sciences; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Natural, Mathematical, Engineering and Physical Sciences; and interdisciplinary work. The merit-based portfolio of selected projects is remarkably balanced in terms of discipline, with one exception: 31 percent of proposals in the Arts and Humanities were successful, substantially above the overall campus average of 16 percent.
Proposal assessment was based on quality, risk and rewards, according to excellence and novelty of the proposal, impact on the scholarly community, likelihood of success and the likelihood of future extramural funding.
The 45 “almost winners” were awarded small amounts of unrestricted funds intended to help the researchers refine their proposals for the next round of competition starting in September.
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