Building The Temple University
Research Enterprise
Ken Blank, Ph.D.
Senior Vice Provost for Research and Graduate
Education
January 2012
ACADEMIC COMPASS INITIATIVE
RESEARCH EXCELLENCE
Temple will move aggressively to increase its
sponsored research and promote a climate
conducive to excellence in research, entrepreneurial
activity and creative expression. We will leverage the
unique breadth and scope of the expertise of our
faculty to generate multidisciplinary research that will
improve people’s lives.
VISION
GLOBAL CHALLENGES, COLLABORATIVE
SOLUTIONS
Address global and societal challenges through
interdisciplinary and translational, use-inspired
research.
Leverage collaborative and entrepreneurial environment
to achieve prominence in interdisciplinary and
translational research and in innovations.
GOAL
DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH INITIATIVES
Initiatives developed will address important societal
problems and provide the academic environment for the
education of our students through:
• increasing the quality of our already outstanding research
programs
• increasing extramural research awards and expenditures
• increasing the commercialization of Temple’s technology to
benefit society
PREEMINENCE IN RESEARCH AND
RELATED PH.D. PROGRAMS
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EMERGING
OPPORTUNITIES AND EXISTING
STRENGTHS
Continue to develop existing programs and launch new
major University-wide research initiatives based on
possible thrusts that include:
• Drug discovery and development
• Healthcare disparities
• Water resources
• STEM education
• Substance abuse
• Gene-environment interactions
A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO BUILDING
THE RESEARCH ENTERPRISE
Focus on interdisciplinary, translational
research
• Fundamental or basic research in science and engineering is the
discovery of new knowledge.
• Translational research is the process
of using these fundamental research
discoveries to produce new innovations
that may be used to develop new
products and processes.
A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO BUILDING
THE RESEARCH ENTERPRISE
Use-inspired research
Source: “Pasteur’s Quadrant” by Donald Stokes 1998)
A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO BUILDING
THE RESEARCH ENTERPRISE (CONT)
• Identify research themes
E.g. - Water resources
• Focus on research thrusts within thematic areas
E.g. - sustainability of the water supply
• Strategically focus faculty hires, Ph.D. programs, etc
• Pursue an active business development strategy with federal
agencies and industry to leverage our capabilities to attain a
minimum of $3-5M/year in expenditures
• Leverage outside partners from other academic institutions,
government agencies and industryx
A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO BUILDING
THE RESEARCH ENTERPRISE (CONT)
•
Identify strategic programs based on our core competencies with the goal of
developing practical solutions to complex societal problems
•
Build multi-investigator, interdisciplinary teams to implement the strategic
initiatives
•
Continue to identify investment and funding opportunities for:
- Facilities: e.g., Medical Education and Research Building, Science
Education and Research Building
- Shared Instrumentation and Core Facilities: e.g., MRI medical scanners,
High Performance Computing, NMR molecular probes.
- New research programs
STRATEGIC PROGRAMS
CRITERIA
•
The probability that Temple will become a leader in the field in the next
five years
•
The opportunity to integrate research with teaching
•
The ability to attract outstanding undergraduate and graduate students as
well as postdoctoral trainees
•
The ability to build a distinctive Ph.D. program around the research topic
•
The ability to attract and retain outstanding faculty
•
The ability to sustain the program through extramural funding
•
The possibility of producing intellectual property that will lead to
commercialization
A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO
TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION
• Technology commercialization office will actively work with faculty
to identify promising technologies and fully develop the invention
disclosure
• Faculty will be guided in the commercialization pathway for their
technology (Fox School of Business and Management, Ben
Franklin Partners, Bioadvance, UCSC) and funding streams
developed to result in advanced stage technologies with
increased value
• Licensing to New Companies with experienced management with
the objective of rapidly monitizing equity
OUTCOMES
• Increased interdisciplinary research and education
• Identification of Temple as a major national
comprehensive research university
• Increased revenues from grants and contracts
through diversification of the research portfolio
• Increased technology commercialization contributing
to economic development at the local, state and
national level
METRICS
• New awards and research expenditures from
externally funded sponsored projects
• Papers published in peer reviewed journals
• Scholarly books published
• Ph.D. students graduated and
where they obtain positions
• Intellectual property (IP)
disclosures, patents issued and
licensing revenue
PATHWAY TO CONTINUED SUCCESS
• Hire new tenure track and research faculty strategically
to support programmatic growth
• Develop leadership capability of faculty to lead major
programs and submit large proposals
• Recruit senior faculty
• Develop strategic industry and government agency
relationships
• Diversify external funding sources (NIH and NSF
budgets will not increase anytime soon)