UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS
MEETING OF THE
EDUCATIONAL POLICY
COMMITTEE
SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE
September 13, 2012
2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Small Auditorium, Harrison Institute
Committee Members:
Stephen P. Long, M.D., Chair
Frank B. Atkinson
A. Macdonald Caputo
Hunter E. Craig
Allison Cryor DiNardo
Randal J. Kirk
George Keith Martin
Linwood H. Rose
Hillary A. Hurd
Helen E. Dragas, Ex-officio
Robert S. Kemp, Consulting Member
AGENDA
PAGE
I.
II.
CONSENT AGENDA (Mr. Simon)

Program Closure: M.A. in Bioethics
ACTION ITEM (Ms. Sullivan)

Establishment of the Mary Irene DeShong
Professorship in Design and Health in the
School of Architecture
III. REPORTS BY THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND PROVOST
(Mr. Simon)
A. Faculty Senate Report (Mr. Simon to introduce
Mr. George M. Cohen; Mr. Cohen to report)
B. Report on Academic Assessment (Mr. Simon to
introduce Ms. Josipa Roksa; Ms. Roksa to report)
C. Report on Sponsored Research (Mr. Simon to
introduce Mr. Thomas C. Skalak; Mr. Skalak to
report)
D. Dual Degree Program: School of Law and the
Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Written Report)
IV.
EXECUTIVE SESSION (to take place in separate session)

Faculty Personnel Actions
V.
ATTACHMENT

Report on University Research Activity
1
2
4
5
6
9
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS CONSENT AGENDA
PROGRAM CLOSURE: M.A. IN BIOETHICS: Approval of the
discontinuance of the M.A. in Bioethics
BACKGROUND: The University reviews its academic programs on a
five-year cycle to assess their relevance and quality. In
addition, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia
(SCHEV), in accordance with the Code of Virginia, periodically
conducts a program productivity and viability review of degree
programs. After identifying programs that do not meet
productivity and viability standards, SCHEV works closely with
the University to allow for the continuation of programs that
serve the needs of the institution and/or the Commonwealth.
After such consultation, a decision is made as to which programs
to discontinue. As a result of the most recent SCHEV program
productivity and viability review, the University proposes to
discontinue the M.A. in Bioethics. No students are enrolled in
the program. All degree program closures must be approved by
the Board of Visitors prior to submission to SCHEV. The
effective date of the closure will be January 1, 2013.
DISCUSSION: During the most recent program productivity and
viability review, SCHEV identified the M.A. in Bioethics as a
program that did not meet the benchmarks. The Committee on
Educational Policy and Curriculum (CEPC), the faculty of Arts
and Sciences, and the Academic Affairs Committee each voted to
discontinue the program. The Faculty Senate endorsed the
discontinuation at its April 2012 meeting.
ACTION REQUIRED: Approval by the Educational Policy Committee
and by the Board of Visitors
APPROVAL TO DISCONTINUE THE M.A. IN BIOETHICS
RESOLVED, after review by the University, the State
Council of Higher Education for Virginia, and the Faculty
Senate, the M.A. in Bioethics, in the Graduate School of Arts
and Sciences, shall be discontinued because it is no longer
viable.
1
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
BOARD MEETING:
September 13, 2012
COMMITTEE:
Educational Policy
AGENDA ITEM:
II. Establishment of the Mary Irene DeShong
Professorship in Design and Health in the
School of Architecture
BACKGROUND: Today, the design of effective, ecological, and
economically feasible environments for human health is still a
new frontier and a critical one for our nation and the world.
This is a growing field and there is urgency for the University
to continue to advance in this area of research and practice.
DISCUSSION: Donors who wish to remain anonymous have provided
the funds to establish a professorship in design and health.
The professor will provide the intellectual leadership for the
Center for Design and Health in the School of Architecture,
which is poised to become a national leader in the pursuit of
cross-disciplinary research to aid the design and planning of
effective environments for human health and well-being.
ACTION REQUIRED: Approval by the Educational Policy Committee
and by the Board of Visitors
APPROVAL TO ESTABLISH THE MARY IRENE DESHONG PROFESSORSHIP IN
DESIGN AND HEALTH
WHEREAS, the design of effective, just, and economically
feasible environments for human health is still a new frontier
and a critical one for our nation and the world; and
WHEREAS, The Center for Design and Health in the School of
Architecture is the only research center in the United States
that focuses on a variety of health issues across a wide range
of scales, including housing, neighborhoods, communities,
cities, and regions as well as the design and planning of
patient-centered healthcare facilities, healing gardens and
learning centers; and
WHEREAS, donors who wish to remain anonymous have come
forward to fund a distinguished professorship in the field of
design and health with the expectation of attracting a scholar
2
and practitioner
practitioner who
who values
values design
design solutions
solutions that
that create
create effective
and
and
economically
feasible
environments
for
human
health
by
effective and economically feasible environments for human
synthesizing the art of design with the evidence-based perspective
of scientific
and
UNIVERSITYinquiry;
OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
WHEREAS, the professor shall be a nationally or
internationally-recognized
thought
leader, academician, or
BOARD
MEETING:
September
13, 2012
practitioner, who may direct and shall provide intellectual
leadership for the Center
for Design
COMMITTEE:
Educational
Policyand Health, build partnerships
across disciplines with leading practitioners, government policymakers,ITEM:
and fellow academics
at the Senate
highestReport
levels, and establish a
AGENDA
III.A. Faculty
new curriculum in design and health at the University; and
ACTION REQUIRED:
None
WHEREAS, the professorship honors the distinguished career of
Mary Irene DeShong
as an outstanding
teacher
DISCUSSION:
George in
M. public
Cohen, education
Brokaw Professor
of Corporate
Law
and chair
elementary
principal;
and
of theschool
Faculty
Senate, has been a member of the
faculty since 1993. Mr. Cohen holds a J.D. from the University
RESOLVED, the
Visitors
Mary
of Pennsylvania
Law Board
Schoolofand
a Ph.D establishes
in Economicsthe
from
theIrene
DeShong Professorship
in Design
and Health
at the School
of
University
of Pennsylvania.
He teaches
contracts,
professional
Architecture,
to
attract
and
retain
scholars
of
special
eminence
in
responsibility, and agency and partnership law.
the field of design and health; and
Mr. Cohen will report on the Faculty Senate's activities
RESOLVED
the its
Board,
thefor
University,
the School
of
over the
recentFURTHER,
months and
plans
the comingand
year.
He
Architecture
express
their deep gratitude
to the
donors
will
also offer
some reflections
on the Board
retreat
andfor their
generous
support
of
the
School
of
Architecture.
faculty-Board relations.
3
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
BOARD MEETING:
September 13, 2012
COMMITTEE:
Educational Policy
AGENDA ITEM:
III.A.
ACTION REQUIRED:
None
Faculty Senate Report
DISCUSSION: George M. Cohen, Brokaw Professor of Corporate Law
and chair of the Faculty Senate, has been a member of the
faculty since 1993. Mr. Cohen holds a J.D. from the University
of Pennsylvania Law School and a Ph.D in Economics from the
University of Pennsylvania. He teaches contracts, professional
responsibility, and agency and partnership law.
Mr. Cohen will report on the Faculty Senate's activities
over the recent months and its plans for the coming year. He
will also offer some reflections on the Board retreat and
faculty-Board relations.
4
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
BOARD MEETING:
September 13, 2012
COMMITTEE:
Educational Policy
AGENDA ITEM:
III.B.
ACTION REQUIRED:
None
Academic Assessment
BACKGROUND: Academic assessment is at the forefront of
conversations about the future of higher education. Making
desirable progress on assessment necessitates a meaningful
conversation about what students should learn in higher
education and how we could measure successful attainment of
specific learning goals. Addressing these two issues
builds a foundation for charting a path toward improving the
quality of students' experiences. This presentation will
facilitate discussion on these crucial issues as well as present
examples and broader contexts of the measurement of student
learning in higher education.
DISCUSSION: Josipa Roksa is Associate Professor of Sociology
and Education and Associate Director of the Center for Advanced
Study of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. She focuses
on studying social inequality in students’ experiences and
outcomes in higher education. She has examined the role of
state contexts in shaping access and attainment in higher
education, the importance of life course transitions, including
work, marriage/cohabitation and parenthood, for educational
success, and whether and how much students learn on their
journey through college. In addition to numerous articles in
both sociology and education journals, Professor Roksa is coauthor of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College
Campuses.
Ms. Roksa will engage with the Board in a discussion about
academic assessment by exploring two crucial and connected
questions: What knowledge, skills and dispositions should
students develop in higher education? And how do we know when
we have achieved those goals? Following the general discussion,
Ms. Roksa will present information on the Collegiate Learning
Assessment, one specific tool that aims to assess a particular
set of skills. Moreover, she will comment on a broader
conversation about accountability, including instructiveness of
the standards of learning (SOL) experience for higher education.
5
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
BOARD MEETING:
September 13, 2012
COMMITTEE:
Educational Policy
AGENDA ITEM:
III.C.
ACTION REQUIRED:
None
Sponsored Research
BACKGROUND: U.Va has increased in both federal and total
research expenditures since 2007, reaching a historic all-time
high in 2011, despite increasing competitiveness at federal
agencies and the private sector economic downturn over the same
period. The University’s sponsored research totals have
increased over 50% since FY 2000. The overall immediate future
for U.Va sponsored research will largely depend on the ongoing
federal agency Research and Development (R&D) budgets, and our
faculty’s competitiveness. The University is also pursuing
diversification of its research portfolio through a more active
partnering approach to corporate, foundation, and private
philanthropic funding support.
DISCUSSION: Thomas C. Skalak is Professor of Biomedical
Engineering and Vice President for Research. As Vice President
for Research, he is responsible for the integration and
enhancement of research activities across the University’s
schools and research centers. Mr. Skalak served as chair of the
Department of Biomedical Engineering from 2001–2008. While at
U.Va, he has been principal investigator responsible for more
than $40 million in research grants.
The University receives the majority (nearly two-thirds) of
its sponsored research awards from federal sponsors, (primarily
National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense
(DoD), and National Science Foundation (NSF). Based on data
from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Survey of Research
and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges, which
includes research spending from over 700 U.S. institutions,
U.Va’s federal research funding rank was 54th in 2011 and 48th
in 2006. The majority of sponsored research (90%) is awarded to
three schools: the School of Medicine, the School of
Engineering and Applied Science, and the College and Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences. The School of Medicine garners
over half of the University’s sponsored research, mainly from
6
the NIH. With the flattening of NIH budgets, the School’s
totals have correspondingly leveled off. The School of
Engineering has achieved a robust external funding rate increase
over the past five years, doubling its overall funding through
successful junior and senior faculty hiring, key strategic
industrial partnerships, and alignment with federal funding
opportunities. The College has generally remained static in its
overall total sponsored research efforts over the past several
years, and is less active than the School of Medicine (SOM) and
the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) in research
intensity. The Curry School, based largely on its educational
assessment programs, represents a smaller, but growing, portion
of the University’s research base. Nursing, Batten, Law and
Architecture see modest ongoing research funding, while the
Commerce School and Darden receive virtually no sponsored
research awards. The latter pursue research via other
mechanisms, such as endowments. With central support,
Architecture and Nursing are making efforts to stimulate new
externally-funded research growth.
As compared to other public institutions in the top 50 of
federal research expenditures, U.Va’s institutional and state
support for science and engineering research is the lowest in
the nation. State research support to U.Va is the lowest among
the top 50 public universities and institutional support is
second lowest among the same group. With this modest research
investment from the institution and the state, the University is
still remarkably competitive in receiving peer-reviewed federal
funding. As an example of return on investment, U.Va’s federal
research expenditures are 8.7 times the combined state and
institutional research expenditures, compared with a national
average of all public universities of only 3.1 times and
Virginia Tech’s return of 0.8 times (from independent NSF survey
data). We are thus highly competitive with national peers for
federal funding and have further room to grow our research
enterprise.
Indirect cost recoveries (or F&A) generated from external
research awards roughly mirror the trends identified above.
Indirect costs are those costs which cannot be identified
readily and specifically with a particular sponsored project or
activity. Shared resources such as a library or the heating,
electricity, and maintenance of buildings housing multiple
projects, are common examples of costs that fall within this
category. The University’s indirect cost recovery was $69.3
million in FY12, after peaking at $73.3 million in FY11. That
decline was expected, given the end of federal stimulus (ARRA)
7
funding. The School of Medicine generates the majority of the
University’s indirect cost recoveries, followed by SEAS and the
College. Although the University’s federal indirect rate
recently increased from 54% to 58%, we do not expect to see
substantial increases in indirect cost recoveries in the near
term, but this depends on faculty grant submission activity.
Over the past five years, the number of University proposals
submitted and awards received have remained relatively static,
while funding has increased.
The University provides a robust portfolio of activities to
support and enhance research opportunities for our faculty.
These efforts include: internal seed programs for the sciences,
social sciences, and the humanities; funding for industry
research contract management; grant writing resources to develop
proposals in strategic areas; debt service for new research
buildings; institutional cost share support for transformative
grant submittals; partnering with schools and departments on key
faculty recruitments and retentions; equipment purchases for
collaborative research; bridge funding to proven research-active
faculty who are between grants; compliance programs to protect
the health and safety of students, faculty, staff, and research
animals; leading technology commercialization efforts; and
organizing and funding multidisciplinary research initiatives
that span multiple schools and external partners. All these
activities provide a strong framework for our faculty to develop
and nurture their innovative ideas.
To move the University research agenda forward, we need to
enhance both research intensity and collaborative interactions
across the University and with external partners. To achieve
this goal, we must align faculty, department chair, and dean
recruiting/review with these attributes and with strategic
institutional priorities to ensure that every recruit and
retention matters. We need to expect high levels of energy,
creative vision, and enthusiasm in the leadership of every
school and department. We need to critically and continuously
assess research excellence and strategically support
transformational opportunities that will truly distinguish the
university and have an impact on the world.
8
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
BOARD OF VISITORS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
BOARD MEETING:
September 13, 2012
COMMITTEE:
Educational Policy
AGENDA ITEM:
III.D. Dual Degree Program: School of Law
and the Institut d’Études Politiques de
Paris (Written Report)
ACTION REQUIRED:
None
BACKGROUND: The School of Law has signed a Memorandum of
Agreement (MOA) to create a dual degree program with the
Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).
DISCUSSION: The Executive Vice President and Provost has
approved a MOA, creating a dual degree program between the
School of Law and the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris
(Sciences Po). Students in the School of Law will be able to
study for one year at Sciences Po leading to the Master’s in
Economic Law with a global studies specialization from Sciences
Po. Students will pursue the degree during the course of the
three-year J.D. program at U.Va. Students will thus earn both
the J.D. and the Master’s in Economic Law in three years.
9
ATTACHMENT
University Research Activity
Thomas C. Skalak
Vice President for Research
This report provides historical data on research programs and sponsored research funding at
UVa, and poses two questions:
1. Given the UVa vision of being the global ideal in research-based education, how can we
increase the level of local and state investments in strategic research activities?
2. How can the BoV help us to engage new partners in the UVa research enterprise?
Background
Research is one of our primary “purposes for being” as a university. Research creates new
knowledge. Research provides student experiences in original inquiry, design, creative work,
and discovery. Research inspires capable partners. It is an investment we want to make.
In this report, we will discuss the overall scope of sponsored research at UVa, ongoing and
envisioned research initiatives that distinguish UVa, and the central importance of the research
enterprise in providing an excellent student experience at UVa.
A vision for UVa is to be “The Global Ideal in Research-Based Education.” How will we achieve
this vision? We will achieve it through the creation of new knowledge via original research,
scholarship, and creativity. What kinds of research activity could distinguish UVa among our
peers? UVa can be differentiated and distinguished via our collaborations and resulting impact
on the world. This is the “magic of the second story” that Thomas Jefferson envisioned when
he designed and built the pavilions on the Lawn with second story balustrades and balconies
that allowed scholars in different fields to exchange ideas freely. Collaboration and free
exchange of ideas in a diverse group is exciting to leading researchers, professionals, and
students who are addressing major societal challenges in many fields. An emphasis on this
quality attracts new talent and unleashes the capabilities of existing talent at UVa.
Overall Scope and Distribution of Research at UVa
UVa has increased in both federal and total research expenditures since 2007, reaching a
historic all-time high in 2011 (see Appendix, Fig 1.1), despite increasing competitiveness at
federal agencies and the private sector economic downturn over the same period. The
University’s sponsored research totals have increased over 50% since FY 2000. The overall
immediate future for UVa sponsored research will largely depend on the ongoing federal
agency R&D budgets, and our faculty’s competitiveness. The University is also pursuing
diversification of its research portfolio through a more proactive partnering approach to
corporate, foundation, and private philanthropic funding support.
1
UVa receives the majority (nearly two-thirds) of its sponsored research awards from federal
sponsors (mainly NIH, DoD and NSF). UVa’s federal research funding rank was 54th in 2010 and
48th in 2006. The majority of sponsored research (90%) is awarded to three schools: the School
of Medicine, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the College of Arts and Sciences
(see Appendix, Fig 3.2). The School of Medicine garners over half of the University’s sponsored
research, mainly from the NIH. With the flattening of NIH budgets, the School’s totals have
correspondingly leveled off as well. The School of Engineering has achieved a robust external
funding rate increase over the past five years, doubling its overall funding, through successful
junior and senior faculty hiring, key strategic industrial partnerships, and alignment with federal
funding opportunities. The College has generally remained static in its overall total sponsored
research efforts over the past several years, and is less active than SOM and SEAS in research
intensity. The Curry School, based largely on its educational assessment programs, represents a
smaller, but growing, portion of the University’s research base. Nursing, Batten, Law and
Architecture see modest ongoing research funding, while the Commerce School and Darden
receive virtually no sponsored research awards. The latter pursue research via other
mechanisms, such as endowments. Architecture and Nursing are making efforts, with central
support, to stimulate new externally-funded research growth.
Research Initiatives
The University continuously invests in hiring and retaining faculty, including investments in
laboratories and other scholarly activities, seeks out and invests in promising research ideas
and initiatives, and supports the research infrastructure underpinning these activities.
Initiatives have varying magnitudes and durations, and are continuously initiated, assessed,
adapted, and sunset. Current cross-grounds initiatives in various stages of development include
Big Data, OpenGrounds, Sustainability, Energy Systems, Biosciences, and Latin America research
partnerships. Graduate Studies and UVa Innovation represent long-term programs that must
be grown and enhanced continuously. Previous University research strategies have generally
demonstrated positive outcomes from the dedicated central investments. For example, the
prior BoV Research Enhancement program which coordinated thematic senior researcher
recruitment (“star hires”), has to date brought in over $85 million in new sponsored research
from a central funds investment of $20 million (about a 4-1 incremental return on
investment). The multidisciplinary research programs created and supported from the strategic
2020 planning effort each have had varying degrees of success. Over time the investigators
affiliated with the 2020 Nanotechnology and the Morphogenesis/Regenerative Medicine
initiatives have generated over $220 million in research awards from central seed funds totaling
about $10 million (about a 20-1 incremental return on investment). From these past
experiences we learned that focused central support and strategic landscape review are critical
elements in developing and seeding transformational cross-disciplinary and multi-school
2
efforts. Recent examples include university initiatives in Energy Systems and Biomedical
Innovation proof-of-concept funding, which have provided outstanding incremental returns on
investment of 32-1 and 7-1, respectively. Therefore, we see a key central role in leveraging the
collaborative talents of faculty across grounds to pursue valuable distinguishing research
opportunities that otherwise could go unexplored or unrealized.
Competitiveness of UVa Faculty in Research: UVa is #1 among Peer Group
As compared to other public institutions in the top 50 of federal research expenditures, UVa’s
institutional and state support for science and engineering research is the lowest in the nation.
State research support to UVa is the lowest among the top 50 public universities and
institutional support is second lowest among the same group. With this modest research
investment from the institution and the state, the University is remarkably competitive in
receiving peer-reviewed federal funding. As an example, UVa’s federal research expenditures
are 8.7 times the combined state and institutional research expenditures (see Appendix, Fig
1.4), compared with a national average of all public universities of only 3.1 times and Virginia
Tech’s ratio of 0.8 times (NSF survey data). UVa is #1 among our designated peer group in this
research performance metric (see Fig 1.4). We are thus highly competitive with national peers
for federal funding, and have further room to grow our research enterprise. Further state and
local investment is highly likely to produce substantial additional research awards, because we
believe that there is still substantial remaining and untapped capacity within the UVa faculty.
Indirect cost recoveries (or F&A) generated from external research awards roughly mirror the
trends identified above. Indirect costs are those costs which cannot be identified readily and
specifically with a particular sponsored project or activity. Shared resources such as a library or
the heating, electricity, and maintenance of buildings housing multiple projects are common
examples of costs that fall within this category. The University’s indirect cost recovery was
$69.3 million in FY12, after peaking at $73.3 million in FY11. That decline was expected, given
the end of federal stimulus (ARRA) funding. The School of Medicine generates the majority of
the University’s indirect cost recoveries, followed by SEAS and the College. Although the
University’s federal indirect rate recently increased to 58% from 54%, we do not expect to see
substantial increases in indirect cost recoveries in the near term, but this depends on faculty
grant submission activity. Over the past 5 years, the number of University proposals submitted
and awards received have remained relatively static.
The University provides a robust portfolio of activities to support and enhance research
opportunities for our faculty. These efforts include: internal seed programs for the sciences,
social sciences and the humanities; funding for industry research contract management; grant
writing resources to develop proposals in strategic areas; debt service for new research
buildings; institutional cost share support for transformative grant submittals; partnering with
3
schools and departments on key faculty recruitments and retentions; equipment purchases for
collaborative research; bridge funding to proven research-active faculty who are between
grants; compliance programs to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and
research animals; leading technology commercialization efforts; and organizing and funding
multidisciplinary research initiatives that span multiple schools and external partners.
Achieving Our Vision for the UVa “Student Experience”: Providing the Global Ideal in
Research-Based Education
All these activities provide a strong framework for our faculty and students to develop and
nurture their innovative ideas. About 64% of undergraduate students currently engage in some
form of research or inquiry during their experience at UVa (see Appendix, Fig 5.1). This is very
good. To realize the vision of UVa to be the “global ideal in research-based education”,
however, we seek to provide every student with a research experience that creates new
knowledge, applications with societal relevance, or other creative work with impact.
To move the University research agenda forward we need to enhance both research intensity
and collaborative interactions across the University and with external partners. To achieve this
goal, we must align faculty, department chair, and dean recruiting/review with these attributes
and with strategic institutional priorities to ensure that every recruit and retention matters.
We need to expect high levels of energy, creative vision, and enthusiasm in the leadership of
every school and department. We need to critically and continuously assess research
excellence and strategically support transformational opportunities that will truly distinguish
the university and have impact on the world.
“Creating the Magic” : Research is an Investment, Not a Cost
The “magic of the second story” is created through vibrant research experiences across
disciplines. The research enterprise helps to deliver the UVa vision of being “the global ideal in
research-based education” for all students. At present, it costs UVa about $0.33 for each $1.00
of research performed at UVa (Source: BOV Retreat data, 2009). This includes the cost of
research facilities and unrecovered indirect costs. The research enterprise thus provides a very
deep discount of 67% on our delivery of the UVa vision to students - of a research-based,
experiential, inquiry-based learning experience. This 67% cost savings to UVa has a total
current annual value of about $300 M (see Appendix, Fig 3.1), or more than two times the total
state funding to UVa. In other words, when we invest UVa funds in research, we see a 2-1
return on that investment in terms of the overall UVa research enterprise that is established.
That enterprise is then available to students, and creates new knowledge, new human capital,
and benefits to society. It’s an investment we need to make. We currently provide 64% of
students with a research experience (Appendix, Fig 5.1). To provide 100% of students with a
4
research experience, one can extrapolate from current state and local investments of $26 M
annually (see Appendix, Table in Fig 1.4) that we’d need to increase state and local investment
in research by at least 50% or $13 M annually. To achieve other aspects of strategic research
growth, additional levels of investment might be needed.
Partnerships and Investments in UVa Research and Innovation
Federal research funding is highly competitive and peer-reviewed for quality, innovativeness,
and impact. Our federal research ranking in 2010 was 54th among all universities, whereas
Virginia Tech's was 70th. It is important to recognize the difference between funding from state
service agencies and peer-reviewed, nationally-competitive research funding. UVa has also
built and put into service three new major research buildings serving biomedical research,
engineering research, and the college's physical and biosciences research over the last five
years. These buildings provide new high-quality spaces for research, serving the needs of our
faculty to continue to be competitive for federal funds and living up to our commitment to
provide experiential, creative, and inquiry-based learning for UVa students in state-of-the-art
laboratories. These are investments in research that had to be made, to deliver on the vision.
UVa is a highly sought-after partner for government and corporate partners, and is becoming
known as a destination for innovation-based start-up companies and corporate collaborations.
Rolls Royce partnered with UVa to locate a new advanced jet engine manufacturing plant in
Virginia after a major global competition, in part due to the access to UVa's engineering
programs and willingness to partner in creating new, tailored educational programs.
AstraZeneca, a top 10 global drug company known for its cutting-edge research, chose UVa for
a major cardiovascular research partnership over other major U.S. medical research institutions
after a national search. UVa annually hosts venture capital firms managing over $10 B in
venture capital each year at the UVa Venture Summit, making it the largest university event of
its kind in the world and bringing high-quality business partners to UVa as a destination for
innovation-based deals and start-up companies that produce jobs and economic growth for the
Commonwealth and the nation. Multiple schools at UVa are increasing emphasis and
availability of entrepreneurship education for their students at the undergraduate and graduate
levels. Many other new corporate partnerships are in development stages, including partners
such as Lockheed-Martin, Alcoa, and MeadWestvaco. New partnerships with the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) are also in
development, given their increased concentration of facilities near UVa and the UVa Research
Park. Commercialization revenues for UVa-derived intellectual property and other partnerships
are at the national average (about 2.3% of research expenditures, see Appendix, Figs 7.1 and
7.2 ) and UVa has produced a robust product pipeline over the past decade, with some 74
products now in varying stages of development or production (see Appendix, Table 7.3). All of
these activities are summarized in more detail on the new website of UVa Innovation. We
envision development of an “innovation accelerator” near the UVa Grounds in the near future,
which would further accelerate our ability to bring university ideas to commercialization via
improved mentoring, business development, and seed-stage funding mechanisms. This is
5
addressed as a priority in the recent strategic planning report on the UVa Research Parks and is
included in the current UVa 6-year academic plan with the Commonwealth.
UVa's internationally-recognized innovation leaders frequently partner with government
agencies and representatives to enhance the nation's innovation ecosystem, via invited U.S.
Congressional testimony and most recently via UVa input to the drafting of the Start-Up Act by
U.S. Senator Mark Warner, which aims in part to enhance the translation of university
innovation to new job creation and economic growth. UVa faculty have served the state and
nation in many other ways, including as President of the National Academy of Engineering, as
Presidents of the American Diabetes Association, American Institute for Medical and Biological
Engineering, and American Physiological Society, as Chair of the Defense Sciences Research
Council of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), Director of Defense Research
and Engineering at the U.S. Department of Defense, and many other agencies addressing
challenges of importance to the people of our state and nation.
UVa has been and remains highly committed to fundamental new value creation through basic
research and discovery, as well as application of new knowledge to society’s most challenging
issues. Universities are an essential part of the nation’s research and innovation ecosystem
that is the key to future freedom, peace, health, and economic prosperity for all, and UVa is
proud to be an important contributor to the people of our state and nation.
Research Activity, Ranking, and Quality
Another objective, independent assessment of research activity and quality is the National
Research Council (NRC) rankings (they consider impact in publications, citations, awards, and
other metrics). In the latest NRC rankings released in 2010, nearly a third of the participating
U.Va. programs were assigned ranges that reached, on one of the two overall rankings, as high
as the top 10: English, Religious Studies, and Spanish in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences;
Kinesiology in the Curry School of Education; the Ph.D. program in the School of Nursing;
Microbiology, Pharmacology and Physiology in the School of Medicine; Systems Engineering in
the School of Engineering and Applied Science; and Biomedical Engineering, which spans the
schools of Medicine and Engineering. Humanities and social sciences, traditional U.Va.
strengths, also showed depth in the NRC assessment. Of the eleven programs ranked, five –
English, French, German, Religious Studies and Spanish – reached into the top 15 range. In
STEM-H fields, 12 of 24 science, engineering and mathematics programs demonstrate high
levels of research activity – a key ingredient of the NRC formula. Five of eight programs in the
School of Medicine, six of nine Engineering School programs and two of the eight science and
math programs in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences spanned into the top 15 percent of
performers, or better.
Executive Academic Leadership Must Recognize the Creative Innovators
6
An important role of strategic executive academic leadership must be to recognize, support,
and protect the creative innovators who will imagine and create the future of society, and of
UVa’s research and scholarly programs. This includes the protection of such initiatives from
standard silos. Such silos often produce non-optimal solutions to major interdisciplinary
challenges and/or fail to recognize new opportunities.
Drew Faust, the President of Harvard University, said in a 2012 speech:
“We want to solve society’s most urgent problems. We also want to fathom the universe, and
understand who we are. We want to be able to imagine a world different from the one we live
in now. How can we develop minds that are capable of this kind of imagining? What is the role
of institutions in nurturing the growth of those minds? We must educate students for a world
of uncertainty and rapid change, for a landscape that will require them to improvise …
Fundamental to both the humanities and the sciences is the capacity for interpretation – the
ability to combine intuition and reason to make sense of the world around us. To understand
not only the measure of things but their meaning. This capacity lies at the heart of innovation. It
lies at the heart of what universities do.”
Roger Martin, Dean of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said in his 2009 book, “The
Opposable Mind”:
“Integrative thinking produces possibilities, solutions, and new ideas. It creates a sense
of limitless possibility. Conventional thinking hides solutions in places they can’t be
found and fosters the illusion that no creative solution is possible. With integrative
thinking, aspirations rise over time. Conventional thinking is a self-reinforcing lesson
that life is about accepting unattractive and unpleasant trade-offs. It erodes aspirations.
Fundamentally, the conventional thinker prefers to accept the world as it is. The
integrative thinker welcomes the challenge of shaping the world for the better.”
Judy Estrin is a technical leader and corporate leader who was chief technology officer at CISCO,
founded 7 technology companies, served on the boards of Disney and FEDEX, and was named
three times by Fortune as one of the 50 most powerful women in American business. She
makes similar comments, with additional urgency that we need to re-invent American business
culture to allow space for real value creation through innovation. In her 2008 book “Closing the
Innovation Gap”, she demonstrates that “management 101” alone does not allow for the
culture of exploration and innovation that made America great – we need to create a culture of
education and innovation that protects the early explorers and tinkerers in every field, so that
disruptive ideas can see the light of day – and after that, be managed to a high state of
effectiveness and mission-driven achievements. In reviewing the book, Bob Iger, the CEO of
Disney, said “Judy Estrin has zeroed in on the lack of long-term thinking in business and culture
that is one of the gravest problems we face today.”
To deal with this problem, UVa’s executive leadership must have the capacity to act, and act
strategically and continuously. To support such executive leadership, we conduct continuous
landscape surveillance of the quality of faculty and student ideas and efforts. We attempt to
7
protect and nurture the most promising ones that bubble up from the faculty, as well as to
catalyze new pan-university initiatives that otherwise would not have the executive protection
and budgetary support they need to be tested and emerge over time as new distinguishing
programs for UVa. We use 18 criteria (see Appendix, Figure 8.1) to help make these strategic
judgments and decisions.
In a system of 11 schools and other major centers, there is great opportunity for units to
collaborate on integrative, central strategies or new directions that go beyond their own unit’s
plans. In fact, this is an advantage of a comprehensive university that is perceived as our
primary competitive advantage by corporations which have more narrowly defined core
competencies. When budgetary strains occur, however, it is to be expected that individual
units will naturally tend to invest in immediate unit interests and that investments in landscape
priorities and/or integrative thinking will be less frequent, as Roger Martin described. Yet, this
is the very grave problem that Judy Estrin captured as responsible for America’s failure to
innovate our way forward to a healthy economy and society.
This is why it is essential to have the strong capacity to invest on a continuous basis in panuniversity initiatives with the potential to distinguish the university. It is also important to
anticipate future opportunities and continuously explore and seed the landscape so that
opportunities, when they arise, can be assessed and seized rapidly.
Several key attributes are needed to achieve the long-term, integrative, strategic actions that
create growth and excellence. These include:





Patience (e.g. in seed funding of exploratory programs that provide the coherent and
differentiating basis for major university initiatives)
Direction – the landscape view that exists at the executive level is often needed to steer
into new opportunities, and ideas originating from every part of the organization and
external partners are continuously assessed
Talent – both attraction and retention of talent
Agility – allows for quick starts and rapid changes in direction
Judgment – disruptive and differentiating initiatives are often ahead of their time and
can be rejected or challenged by conventional wisdom, executive champions are often
needed to protect them for periods of time
8
Question 1
Given the UVa vision of being the global ideal in research-based education, how can
we increase the level of local and state investments in strategic research activities?
As described above and with the data in Figure 1.4 and accompanying table, UVa faculty
produce excellent leverage of about 8.7 times the level of state and local funding to UVa in
terms of total federal research expenditures. Every dollar of federal research funding also
produces local economic benefit via job creation, taxes, and local business activity, an added
state benefit. This research enterprise provides a very good level of immersion in a researchbased education for about 64% of UVa undergraduates at the present time (Fig 5.1). This
delivers on the UVa commitment to our vision for each student, at about a 67% cost savings, as
discussed above. Given the need to deliver the “global ideal in research-based education” to
100% of students, however, and the tremendous leveraging capability of UVa faculty, how can
we increase the level of state and local investment in research?
Question 2
How can the BoV help us to engage new partners in the UVa research enterprise?
UVa has a good track record of partnerships with federal agencies, foundations, and some
corporations, including examples such as Rolls Royce, AstraZeneca, and others. Externalities
often produce new opportunities, and we would like to optimally take advantage of new
partnerships to realize strategic growth. At the current time, for example, “Big Data” is an
exciting area of research and application in many fields, from financial markets, mobile
communications, and sociology to astronomy, computer science, and personalized medicine.
Partners in such an effort could include the state, corporations, philanthropic partners, federal
agencies, and international contacts including sovereign wealth funds. How can UVa develop
the partnerships needed to fund, develop, and create impact on the world in such new strategic
initiatives?
9
Conclusion
UVa is in an excellent position to achieve the vision of being the “global ideal in research-based
education.” We can deliver a research-based, experiential education to every UVa student,
given the right investments and partnerships.
Research is an investment we must make, and it delivers on our educational promise to
students at a very deep discount. It is part of UVa’s reason for being.
Strategic landscape opportunities are realized through collaboration among multiple disciplines
and people who integrate disciplinary strengths to address compelling societal issues.
Universities are comprehensive organizations which have great value to society due to their
ability to integrate multiple core competencies to address grand challenges and to pursue new
knowledge over long-term time frames.
We must think and act creatively in every area of scholarship and research in order to live up to
this responsibility of the university.
10
Appendix
University Research Activity Metrics
The University’s sponsored research totals have increased over 50% since FY 2000. The overall immediate
future for UVa sponsored research will largely depend on the ongoing federal agency R&D budgets, and our
faculty’s competitiveness. The University is also pursuing diversification of its research portfolio through a
more proactive approach to corporate, foundation, and private funding support. As illustrated in the
following documentation, UVa receives the majority (nearly two-thirds) of its sponsored research awards
from federal sponsors (mainly NIH, DoD and NSF). The majority of University sponsored research (90%) is
awarded to three schools: the School of Medicine, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the
College of Arts and Sciences.
The School of Medicine alone garners over half of the University’s sponsored research, mainly from the
NIH. However, with the flattening of NIH budgets and the end of stimulus funds, the School’s totals have
correspondingly leveled off as well. The School of Engineering, through successful faculty hiring, key
strategic industrial partnerships (like Rolls Royce), and alignment with federal funding opportunities has
developed a robust external funding rate increase over the past 5 years. Excluding one-time stimulus funds,
the College has generally remained static in its overall total sponsored research efforts over the past several
years, and is below SOM and SEAS in research intensity. The Curry School, based largely on its educational
assessment programs, represents a smaller, but growing, portion of the University’s research base. Nursing,
Batten, Law and Architecture see modest ongoing research funding, while the Commerce School and
Darden receive virtually no sponsored research awards. Architecture and Nursing are making efforts, with
central support, to stimulate new funded research growth.
University Research Expenditures (2007-2011)
UVa has increased in both federal and total research expenditures since 2007, reaching a historic all-time high
in 2011, despite increasing competitiveness at federal agencies and the private sector economic downturn
over the same period (Fig 1.1). Compared to peer institutions, however, we spend less in both gross and per
faculty research expenditure measures (Figs 1.2 and 1.3).
11
Figure 1.1
350.000
UVa Research Totals (2007-2011)
300.000
$ millions
250.000
200.000
FEDERAL
150.000
TOTAL
100.000
50.000
0.000
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
SOURCE: NSF Academic Research and Development Expenditures
Figure 1.2
$800
$750
Federal Research Expenditures by Fiscal Year (in millions)
Source: NSF
Michiga
$700
$650
Penn
$600
UNC
UCLA
$550
Peer Mean
$500
Duke
$450
Cornell
$400
Vanderbilt
$350
Berkeley
$300
$250
Virginia
$200
$150
$100
$50
$0
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
12
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Figure 1.3
Federal Research Expenditures Per Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty
$400,000
Penn
Source: NSF, IPEDS
$350,000
Vanderbilt
Cornell
Peer Mean
Duke
UCLA
UNC
Michigan
$300,000
$250,000
Berkeley
$200,000
Virginia
$150,000
$100,000
$50,000
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Federal Expenditure/(State + Institutional Expenditure) Ratio:
UVa faculty today are quantitatively competitive at the highest national level.
As compared to other public institutions in the top 50 of federal research expenditures, UVa’s institutional
and state support for science and engineering research is the lowest in the nation. State research support to
UVa is the lowest among the top 50 public universities and institutional support is second lowest among the
same group. Even with this modest research investment from the institution and the state, however, UVa
faculty still are remarkably competitive in obtaining peer-reviewed federal funding.
A quantitative metric, defined by the numerical ratio of total federal funding expenditures divided by the sum
of state and local government and institutional expenditures for the research enterprise at a given university,
can be used to assess research competitiveness. It is a measure of how well a given university's faculty
competes with national peers for federal funding, as a function of the level of investment or priming of the
pump achieved via state and institutional funds dedicated to the research enterprise. UVa’s research ratio is
8.7, ranking UVa 3rd in the nation among all public universities (see table below) (using the latest available
independent national data from the 2010 National Science Foundation (NSF) survey). UVa’s research ratio is
almost three times (280%) higher than the national average (3.1) of all public universities that are ranked
higher in federal research expenditures. UVa is #1 among our designated peer group of public and private
peers in this metric of research performance (Fig 1.4). Virginia Tech’s ratio is 0.8. This also suggests that
UVa does have room to grow research in areas of existing strength as well as through good judgment in new
faculty hiring based on a vision of the future. New state and institutional investments, as well as highly
strategic philanthropic gifts, could catalyze further growth in total federal funding and/or corporate funding,
13
based on this demonstrated competitiveness of UVa's faculty, students, and research fellows in seeking new
knowledge that benefits the nation - as Jefferson envisioned.
Figure 1.4
2010 Ratio of Federal Expenditures/State +
Institutional Expenditures (Source: NSF)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
14
Fed
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
Institution (green =
public)
Johns Hopkins U.,
U. WA Seattle
U. MI-Ann Arbor
U. PA
U. Pittsburgh main
Stanford U.
U. CA, San Diego
Columbia
U. NC Chapel Hill
U. WI-Madison
U. CA, Los Angeles
U. CA, San Francisco
Duke U.
Yale U.
Harvard U.
Washington U. St. L.
Penn State
MA Institute of Tech.
Cornell U.
U. MN Twin Cities
U. Southern CA
OH State U.
Vanderbilt U.
Northwestern U.
GA Institute of Tech
U. Chicago
U. TX Austin
Emory U.
Case Western Reserve
U. CA, Davis
CA Institute of Tech
U. AL Birmingham
U. Rochester
Scripps Research
U. CA, Berkeley
U. AZ
U. IL Urbana-Champ
Mt. Sinai
Boston U.
U. MD College Park
U. CO Boulder
TX A&M U.
U. CO Denver Sci. Ctr
Baylor C. of Medicine
U. IA
U. FL
U. Cincinnati
NY U.
OR Health & Science
U. South FL
Purdue U. main
U. IL Chicago
UT SW -Dallas
U. VA main campus
All R&D
expenditures
2,004,482
1,022,740
1,184,445
836,322
822,491
839,839
943,219
807,235
755,284
1,029,295
936,995
935,509
983,289
623,510
583,361
695,974
770,449
677,138
749,721
786,074
592,791
755,194
504,959
603,732
615,833
437,721
589,502
529,453
418,164
679,915
362,172
489,845
414,655
387,298
694,049
586,647
515,133
370,666
352,817
451,415
349,449
689,624
389,461
447,874
444,034
681,548
411,269
365,944
314,990
385,029
548,980
362,939
419,220
276,308
Federal
government
1,737,261
829,885
747,778
642,180
594,675
593,016
580,279
572,213
545,993
545,189
538,521
514,693
514,084
475,794
474,899
468,642
464,750
457,575
448,085
426,359
408,564
399,942
397,656
379,648
372,122
352,728
350,308
336,986
333,689
332,325
328,522
325,103
322,048
313,746
312,789
308,157
303,852
302,770
302,411
297,896
292,030
288,173
285,126
284,072
282,465
279,649
262,513
260,463
247,054
243,017
232,564
232,380
232,027
228,917
State and
local gov't
10,346
23,273
3,322
34,390
12,088
23,391
34,566
12,336
9,727
96,605
26,341
28,189
27,356
7,248
2,902
19,218
62,905
415
66,521
64,719
10,088
106,213
954
4,331
10,470
297
24,389
331
9,261
60,102
1,347
760
8,993
7,686
68,340
31,656
30,395
7,597
1,106
16,483
2,108
139,411
25,315
2,491
6,004
98,597
7,419
4,317
1,061
32,548
59,288
9,216
49,817
548
15
Business
67,600
91,946
38,739
39,032
10,135
61,127
67,601
35,548
26,052
11,594
54,216
50,979
234,361
19,052
24,135
36,777
64,323
102,882
22,869
28,403
44,620
120,101
10,186
13,121
45,672
19,273
56,448
16,363
6,627
37,159
8,138
22,660
20,266
19,079
85,538
19,618
13,661
17,230
8,528
9,118
10,205
46,754
28,661
14,213
15,670
23,426
18,410
7,585
13,939
13,862
29,593
5,975
19,616
6,491
Nonprofit
orgs
90,648
NA
47,627
60,436
22,035
80,769
102,356
66,681
56,847
131,364
91,173
128,827
90,146
38,624
72,974
46,312
37,607
68,919
71,327
69,713
32,659
29,209
22,366
53,190
11,541
27,523
37,423
45,117
17,536
86,953
17,513
26,565
12,038
16,603
86,953
23,975
703
41,562
18,192
3,672
16,026
18,027
30,054
36,132
21,767
19,754
24,194
23,703
22,719
12,959
39,288
23,804
44,843
11,469
Institution
funds
77,460
43,506
338,515
60,112
183,558
79,178
111,160
95,487
116,665
208,479
156,331
136,560
113,351
69,260
0
90,209
139,497
12,484
139,150
176,789
96,860
83,390
68,598
153,442
170,900
35,371
116,583
128,793
50,292
160,255
3,706
114,757
43,308
30,184
120,560
176,331
133,148
917
22,580
117,916
29,080
191,115
16,780
88,150
117,704
251,640
98,733
57,023
29,964
81,294
186,948
91,564
42,634
25,871
All other
sources
21,167
34,130
8,464
172
0
2,358
47,257
24,970
0
36,064
70,413
76,261
3,991
13,532
8,451
34,816
1,367
34,863
1,769
20,091
0
16,339
5,199
NA
5,128
2,529
4,351
1,863
759
3,121
2,946
0
8,002
NA
19,869
26,910
33,374
590
0
6,330
0
6,144
3,525
22,816
424
8,482
0
12,853
253
1,349
1,299
0
30,283
3,012
Comp.
Ratio
19.79
12.43
2.19
6.80
3.04
5.78
3.98
5.31
4.32
1.79
2.95
3.12
3.65
6.22
163.65
4.28
2.30
35.47
2.18
1.77
3.82
2.11
5.72
2.41
2.05
9.89
2.48
2.61
5.60
1.51
65.02
2.81
6.16
8.28
1.66
1.48
1.86
35.56
12.77
2.22
9.36
0.87
6.77
3.13
2.28
0.80
2.47
4.25
7.96
2.13
0.94
2.31
2.51
8.66
Current Faculty Membership in Academies and Scholarly Awards
This achievement measure signifies a partial gauge of faculty quality based on membership in national
academies and receipt of scholarly awards. The number of UVa and peer school faculty receiving awards
from the Fulbright Scholar, Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Award, and NEH is provided over an 11year period (Fig 2.1). The number of current faculty who are members of the National Academy of Science,
the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, or the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences is trended for the past seven years (Fig 2.2).
Figure 2.1
Selected Faculty Awards - Cumulative Total
130
120
110
100
Michigan
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships - Research
Fulbright Scholars
Guggenheim Fellowships
MacArthur Awards
(Cumulative number of awards since 2001)
Berkeley
90
UCLA
80
Peer Mean
70
Penn
UNC
Cornell
60
Virginia
50
40
Duke
30
Vanderbilt
20
10
0
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
16
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Figure 2.2
Current Active Faculty Memberships in Academies
200
Penn
Duke
Cornell
Vanderbilt
Berkeley
Virginia
UCLA
Michigan
North Carolina
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Nat. Acad. of Science
Nat. Acad. of Engr.
17
Institute of Medicine
Am. Acad. of A&S
Sponsored Research Awards: These following measures illustrate the annual dollar amount of sponsored
research awards by fund source and school (Fig 3.1 and 3.2). UVa receives the majority of its sponsored
research awards from federal sponsors (mainly NIH, DoD and NSF). As has been widely reported, some
federal research budgets leveled off over the past several years, and correspondingly, so did the University’s
sponsored award totals and that of its peers. However, from the federal stimulus program, the University
experienced a two-year spike in total sponsored research for FY 2010 and FY 2011. UVa received over $70
million in stimulus funding on 170 awards. The majority of research stimulus support was allocated to NIH
and NSF, which aligned well with UVa research strengths and priorities in the School of Medicine, SEAS and
the College of Arts and Sciences (the University’s three largest funded schools). Therefore, these three
schools received the largest share of federal stimulus funds. Non-stimulus direct costs have been stable over
the last five years (blue bars, Fig 3.1).
Figure 3.1
Figure 3.2
3.3.233.2
18
Indirect cost recoveries (or F&A) generated from external research awards roughly mirrors the trends
identified above. Indirect costs are those costs which cannot be identified readily and specifically with a
particular sponsored project or activity. Shared resources such as a library or the heating, electricity and
maintenance of buildings housing multiple projects are common examples of costs that fall within this
category. As the charts illustrate, the University’s indirect cost recovery was $69.3 million in FY12, after
peaking at $73.3 million in FY11. (Fig 4.1). That decline was expected, given the end of federal stimulus
(ARRA) funding. As expected, the School of Medicine generates the majority of the University’s indirect cost
recoveries followed by SEAS and the College (Fig 4.2). The University’s federal indirect rate recently
increased to 58% for organized research (OR) from 54%. Peer rates are in the same range (Fig 4.3).
Although, the University’s federal indirect rate increased, we do not expect to see substantial increases in
indirect cost recoveries in the near term, but this depends on faculty grant submission activity.
Figure 4.1
19
B or F
F&A by Rate Type
FY Total
80,000,000
70,000,000
60,000,000
Rate Type
50,000,000
ARRA
OR Off-grounds
40,000,000
Other Rates
No F&A
30,000,000
Full OR Rate
20,000,000
10,000,000
0
FY08-Jun
FY09-Jun
FY10-Jun
FY11-Jun
FY12-Jun
FY
B or F
F&A
FY Total
Full OR Rate
FY08-Jun
57,838,476
FY09-Jun
57,759,949
FY10-Jun
57,630,293
FY11-Jun
56,110,364
FY12-Jun
56,699,763
Grand Total 286,038,845
No F&A Other Rates OR Off-grounds ARRA
Grand Total
157,466
4,492,197
3,255,993
65,744,132
71,283
4,778,457
3,430,055
5,714
66,045,459
150,525
5,198,885
3,567,250
4,488,516
71,035,468
123,016
5,492,307
3,400,432
8,189,952
73,316,071
85,854
5,301,362
3,270,657
3,943,844
69,301,480
588,144 25,263,208
16,924,387 16,628,027 345,442,610
20
B or F
June Year-to-Date
60,000,000
50,000,000
40,000,000
FY08
FY
FY09
FY10
A&S
FY11
FY12
FY08
FY09
FY10
Curry
FY11
700,870
705,928
810,800
940,696
753,513
1,112,677
1,324,000
1,187,349
1,135,265
200,227
FY12
FY10
FY11
FY12
FY08
FY09
SOM
SEAS
Other
Curry
A&S
FY10
SEAS
School Group
FY11
FY12
FY08
FY09
FY10
SOM
FY11
FY12
Rate Type
ARRA
OR Off-grounds
Other Rates
No F&A
Full OR Rate
Click on a button here to see just one school
Click on the funnel with red "x" to see all schools
They are currently set up to show the trend for one school at a time, click a button in "School Group" below.
Other
9,158,857
9,872,206
9,481,802
9,546,087
1,486,320
1,879,293
2,532,597
2,528,193
2,732,506
1,049,899
Grand Total
9,769,549
FY09
F&A by School by Rate Type
FY08
ARRA
2,695
477,171
755,352
583,945
58,282
125,244
293,946
21
30,000,000
20,000,000
10,000,000
0
-10,000,000
School Group
Click the funnel and choose either Base or F&A.
332,142
340,640
339,652
359,186
314,122
280,169
262,829
223,868
332,871
307,014
Other
OR OffRates
grounds
372,591
825,543
Rate Type
No F&A
53,868
F&A
Full OR Rate
8,517,547
3,664
28,352
46,574
35,425
6,670
B or F
FY
FY08
8,119,487
8,320,116
7,529,424
7,626,835
412,014
486,447
887,487
991,732
977,095
542,659
-6,670
0
FY09
FY10
FY11
FY12
FY08
FY09
FY10
FY11
FY12
FY08
June Year-to-Date
School Group
A&S
Curry
Other
Figure 4.2
Figure 4.3
Select University F&A Rates
public universities: green
69
70
60
64
57
60
60
62
56
55
50
% Rate
61
40
30
20
10
0
22
52
54
55.5
55.5
58
Undergraduate Research
This measure provides the percentage of undergraduate degree recipients who participated, at some point in
their undergraduate studies, in a significant research experience (Fig 5.1). As defined by the Undergraduate
Research Assessment Committee (URAC), undergraduate research is “the practice of carefully formulating or
addressing a question, problem or objective; analyzing it within a disciplinary or interdisciplinary framework;
producing findings, conclusions, designs, or creative works; and clearly communicating and defending such to
a critical audience.” Programs and departments provided a list of courses where students would be required
to complete such a project; enrollments for those courses were tabulated and are presented below. The
reported 64.2% is considered very good. We also note that if only those research projects which created new
knowledge, applications, or substantial works of creativity were measured, the percentage might be a bit lower
– we estimate perhaps 40-50%.
Figure 5.1
Undergraduate Degree Recipients who
Participated in a Research Experience
100%
90%
80%
70%
63.2%
63.4%
63.8%
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07
64.2%
64.7%
66.2%
64.2%
2009-10
2010-11
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
2007-08
2008-09
Graduating Class
23
National Research Council Rankings
The National Research Council’s Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs examined more than 5,000
doctoral programs in 62 fields at 212 universities across the U.S. The purpose of the assessment was to “help
universities improve the quality of programs through benchmarking; provide potential students and the
public with accessible, readily available information on doctoral programs nationwide; and enhance the
nation’s overall research capacity.”
Using data gathered in 2006, the National Research Council (NRC) used variables such as publications per
faculty member, citations per publication, and student completion rates to create two overall rankings and
three rankings that illuminated dimensions of doctoral programs – research activity, student support and
outcomes, and diversity of the academic environment. Unlike other academic rankings that assign specific
ranks to programs, the NRC assigned a range of scores (e.g., 12th – 25th) to individual programs on each of
the five measures; this was designed to reflect the uncertainty inherent in ordered quality rankings of
programs.
The two overall rankings, survey-based (S Rankings) and regression-based (R Rankings) were derived using
different methodologies. S Rankings were based on how faculty weighted 20 characteristics presumed to be
factors contributing to program quality. Programs in a field rank higher if they demonstrate strength in the
more heavily weighted characteristics. R Rankings depend on weights calculated from faculty ratings of a
sample of programs. Ratings were related to characteristics determined to be factors contributing to program
quality through multiple regression and principal components analysis.
Analysis
The results summarized on the following page show a balanced distribution of high-quality scholarship within
several schools at UVa (Fig 6.1). Nearly a third of the participating UVa programs were assigned ranges on
one of the two overall rankings as high as the top 10: astronomy, English, religious studies, and Spanish in
the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; kinesiology in the Curry School of Education; the PhD program in
the School of Nursing; microbiology, pharmacology, and physiology in the School of Medicine; systems
engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science; and biomedical engineering, which spans the
schools of Medicine and Engineering.
Programs across the University also ranked well on the individual components of research activity, student
support and outcomes, and diversity of the academic environment. Six of 24 science, engineering, and
mathematics programs were assigned ranges as high as the top 10 on research activity, with another six
assigned ranges as high as the top 15. Ten programs in the schools of Graduate Arts and Sciences,
Engineering and Applied Science, Medicine, and Nursing were assigned ranges as high as the top 10 on the
student support and outcomes measure.
24
Figure 6.1 (NRC “rankings”, Assessment of Doctoral Programs)
Graduate Arts and Sciences
School
Medicine
Engineering & Applied
Sciences
Curry
Program
Anthropology
Astronomy
Biology
Chemistry
Economics
English
Environmental
Sciences
French
German
History
History of Art
Mathematics
Philosophy
Physics
Politics
Psychology
Religious Studies
Slavic
Sociology
Spanish
Statistics
Kinesiology
Biomedical
Chemical
Civil
Computer Science
Electrical
Engr. Physics
Mat. Sciences
Mech. & Aero.
Systems
Biochemistry &
Molecular Genetics
Biophysics
Cell Biology
Microbiology
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Physiology
Nursing
# of
Programs
Ranked
82
34
120
178
117
119
R
Ranking
22 - 49
8 - 26
30 - 61
41 - 91
36 - 65
10 - 40
Range of Rankings into which Program Falls
Student
Diversity of
S
Research
Support &
Academic
Ranking Activity
Outcomes Environment
49 - 67
75 - 80
11 - 38
23 - 42
10 - 23
10 - 28
13 - 29
22 - 33
30 - 73
28 - 79
49 - 104
18 - 58
53 - 102 39 - 100
32 - 120
94 - 155
57 - 77
50 - 71
67 - 100
63 - 96
21 - 54
21 - 44
4 - 41
100 - 113
140
19 - 45
28 - 74
19 - 64
96 - 123
44 - 87
43
29
137
58
127
90
160
105
236
40
94
118
60
61
41
74
106
130
126
136
160
83
127
72
13 - 29
12 - 25
24 - 46
35 - 48
50 - 74
23 - 43
38 - 86
26 - 48
14 - 62
4 - 19
NA
53 - 92
1-7
38 - 59
4 - 25
9 - 19
22 - 38
16 - 41
22 - 40
26 - 49
72 - 134
42 - 64
20 - 56
9 - 38
20 - 32
21 - 28
48 - 79
37 - 49
24 - 56
40 - 56
31 - 95
61 - 78
18 - 55
14 - 24
NA
89 - 111
9 - 29
27 - 46
9 - 23
7 - 28
23 - 56
34 - 92
22 - 59
14 - 50
47 - 122
45 - 72
31 - 72
12 - 36
27 – 36
11 - 20
57 - 90
30 - 42
39 - 74
48 - 70
36 - 112
57 - 72
22 - 67
18 - 30
NA
68 - 105
10 - 23
22 - 40
13 - 29
7 - 35
16 - 56
38 - 106
12 - 59
14 - 58
24 – 113
32 - 70
31 - 99
9 - 39
18 - 31
21 - 28
33 - 89
34 - 53
2 - 33
65 - 81
5 - 70
59 - 84
58 - 145
8 - 18
NA
86 - 103
3 - 26
32 - 57
15 - 26
42 - 68
6 - 58
74 - 111
18 - 72
39 - 92
18 - 86
3 - 42
3 - 16
33 - 56
12 - 27
12 - 25
100 - 121
46 - 56
64 - 91
22 - 44
118 - 145
74 - 91
94 - 165
24 - 32
NA
103 - 115
57 - 60
3 - 16
24 - 37
40 - 65
11 - 36
58 - 106
25 - 57
10 - 52
146 - 154
69 - 77
78 - 112
66 - 72
159
23 - 56
16 - 58
21 - 88
4 - 74
57 - 110
159
122
74
94
116
63
52
46 - 102
23 - 76
4 - 20
17 - 39
16 - 76
4 - 26
20 - 41
12 - 55
25 - 86
4 - 25
18 - 62
3 - 41
5 - 28
8 - 23
14 - 83
26 - 96
8 - 38
22 - 81
4 - 47
11 - 42
18 - 40
20 - 88
22 - 98
21 - 63
15 - 57
21 - 86
29 - 55
2 - 15
35 - 79
21 - 64
16 - 44
15 - 46
86 - 108
45 - 59
9 - 24
25
Commercialization Metrics
Figure 7.1
Institution
Year
University
of Virginia
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Research
Expenditures
Invention
Disclosures
Transactions
$ 238,754,000.00
177
61
Commercialization
Revenue*
$
3,595,181
Commercialization
Revenue as % of
Research
Expenditure
1.51%
$ 230,181,000.00
184
58
$
5,162,326
2.24%
$ 257,651,000.00
178
65
$
4,410,327
1.71%
$ 261,604,000.00
162
57
$
6,271,813
2.40%
$ 276,308,000.00
139
42
$
5,131,983
1.86%
$ 292,106,000.00
141
58
$
6,790,223
2.32%
Not Yet Available
148
41
Not Yet Available
Not Yet Available
$
259,434,000.00
161
55
$
5,226,976
2.01%
Averages
*Commercialization Revenue is adjusted to exclude revenues distributed to other institutions.




Total revenues are a lagging indicator of technology commercialization activity – often 5-10
years for positive revenues to flow post-transaction
o A large proportion of revenues are often attributable to one or two “major hits” (e.g.
Wake Forest University and New York University – See Table 7.2 below)
For comparison purposes, all revenue figures must be normalized by research expenditures
UVA LVG has set an aspirational goal to achieve 10% total commercialization revenues as a
percent of research expenditures within 5 years (FY 2011 – 2.32%)
o Key is to implement consistent, commercially reasonable licensing and new venture
creation practices (template agreements, valuation strategies, etc.) to ensure all
transactions are positioned to maximize commercialization and fair return to UVA
Among a peer group (including “Best-in-Class”, in-state, and comparable research expenditure
peer institutions, see below list), UVA ranks:
o 14th of 28 for the period 2006-2010 in terms of average annual commercialization
revenue as a percent of research expenditures
o 2011 performance comparable to the past peer group average (2.32% at UVa vs. 2.37%
at peers - excluding WFU and NYU)
26
Figure 7.2
Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) Comparative Data
Research Expenditures and Commercialization Revenue by Institution (2006-2010)
Commercialization
Revenue as % of
Research
Expenditures
Institution
Year
Duke Univ.
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
589,637,000.00
703,528,206.00
678,184,248.00
709,803,045.00
826,993,375.00
366,020,127.00
365,017,326.00
390,965,216.00
416,476,261.00
450,204,168.00
623,958,100.00
630,132,396.00
660,081,500.00
705,074,000.00
769,500,000.00
$4,101,434.73
$6,558,839.00
$15,454,752.00
$18,639,585.00
$25,605,570.00
$17,572,980.00
$17,468,788.00
$14,969,422.00
$14,328,718.00
$20,070,579.00
$11,975,587.00
$20,555,137.00
$11,323,445.00
$9,647,154.00
0.70%
0.93%
2.28%
2.63%
3.10%
4.80%
4.79%
0.00%
3.59%
3.18%
3.22%
1.90%
3.11%
1.61%
1.25%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
1,757,268,191.00
1,100,580,000.00
1,183,768,000.00
1,242,316,445.00
1,462,975,000.00
699,211,807.00
699,922,095.00
694,217,484.00
733,266,108.00
805,973,770.00
$13,506,022.00
$9,817,821.00
$10,829,753.00
$11,476,690.00
$11,494,909.00
$60,596,599.00
$49,754,560.00
$61,749,227.00
$64,060,944.00
$64,845,813.00
0.77%
0.89%
0.91%
0.92%
0.79%
8.67%
7.11%
8.89%
8.74%
8.05%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
3,035,949,000.00
4,012,743,039.00
4,403,662,006.00
4,686,598,210.00
5,171,519,289.00
796,963,386.00
822,967,675.00
875,753,507.00
1,016,565,913.00
1,139,493,986.00
$180,036,012.00
$92,795,450.00
$140,200,495.00
$96,887,737.00
$98,793,876.00
$19,085,286.00
$11,925,095.00
$23,790,536.00
$16,584,493.00
$37,970,905.00
5.93%
2.31%
3.18%
2.07%
1.91%
2.39%
1.45%
2.72%
1.63%
3.33%
2006
2007
2008
2009
$
$
$
$
583,996,531.00
589,367,920.00
619,600,024.00
666,871,589.00
$2,359,038.00
$2,048,792.00
$2,657,903.00
$2,750,651.00
0.40%
0.35%
0.43%
0.41%
Emory Univ.
Harvard Univ.
Johns Hopkins
Univ.
Stanford Univ.
Univ. of California
System
Univ. of Michigan
Univ. of North
Carolina Chapel
Hill
Research Expenditures
Commercialization
Revenue*
27
Univ. of
Pennsylvania
Univ. of Pittsburgh
Univ. of Southern
California
Univ. of Virginia
Univ. of
Washington/Wash.
Res. Fdn.
UW Madison /
WARF
University of Texas
System
George Mason
Univ.
2010
$
737,591,959.00
$2,517,061.00
0.34%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
640,224,563.00
658,046,213.00
667,354,660.00
760,836,000.00
785,317,000.00
601,568,000.00
620,047,000.00
641,626,000.00
653,925,000.00
737,025,000.00
$8,172,562.00
$5,929,753.00
$8,027,441.00
$11,477,611.00
$11,047,000.00
$10,093,100.00
$4,724,328.00
$6,408,226.00
$3,877,013.00
$3,606,410.00
1.28%
0.90%
1.20%
1.51%
1.41%
1.68%
0.76%
1.00%
0.59%
0.49%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$
$
$
$
$
431,000,000.00
415,200,000.00
484,600,000.00
533,040,769.00
592,790,873.00
$1,639,114.00
$2,546,194.00
$7,260,604.00
$4,385,885.00
$12,276,731.50
0.38%
0.61%
1.50%
0.82%
2.07%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
$
$
$
$
$
$
238,754,000.00
230,181,000.00
257,651,000.00
261,604,000.00
276,308,000.00
292,106,000.00
$3,595,181.00
$5,162,326.00
$4,410,327.00
$6,271,813.00
$5,131,983.00
$6,790,223.00
1.51%
2.24%
1.71%
2.40%
1.86%
2.32%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$ 936,360,325.00
$ 961,483,207.00
$ 1,026,788,452.00
$ 1,076,044,801.00
$ 887,329,593.00
$36,154,727.00
$63,192,107.00
$80,195,891.00
$87,157,673.00
$68,886,037.00
3.86%
6.57%
7.81%
8.10%
7.76%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$ 831,895,000.00
$ 1,028,000,000.00
$ 942,000,000.00
$ 1,132,000,000.00
$ 1,029,000,000.00
$42,192,932.00
$46,410,000.00
$53,959,750.00
$56,559,000.00
$54,067,000.00
5.07%
4.51%
5.73%
5.00%
5.25%
2009
2010
$ 2,272,779,788.00
$ 2,346,099,522.00
$29,622,303.00
1.30%
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$
69,524,779.00
$
143,269.00
0.21%
$
$
$
$
67,639,000.00
79,883,243.00
100,164,596.00
100,286,575.00
$
$
$
$
69,542.00
104,007.00
148,444.00
98,232.00
0.10%
0.13%
0.15%
0.10%
28
Virginia
Commonwealth
Univ.
Virginia Tech
Intellectual
Properties Inc.
Case Western
Reserve Univ.
New York Univ.
Univ. of
Chicago/UCTech
Univ. of Cincinnati
Univ. of Georgia
Univ. of Hawaii
Univ. of Miami
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
$
149,256,000.00
$
1,437,423.00
0.96%
$
$
$
$
134,453,000.00
148,655,000.00
150,989,000.00
197,709,000.00
$
$
$
$
2,445,208.00
1,883,365.00
963,424.00
1,076,975.00
1.82%
1.27%
0.64%
0.54%
$
155,493,910.00
$
1,925,564.00
1.24%
$
$
$
$
181,862,068.00
199,635,893.00
211,519,580.00
226,129,280.00
$
1,990,550.00
$
1,887,070.00
1.09%
0.00%
0.89%
$290,530,274.00
$10,794,377.00
3.72%
$372,237,400.00
$416,077,000.00
$332,661,000.00
$334,993,000.00
$210,804,000.00
$297,867,000.00
$310,699,000.00
$308,834,000.00
$365,944,000.00
$11,213,093.00
$13,294,612.00
$16,281,957.00
$14,333,273.00
$157,358,336.00
$791,174,237.00
$103,925,875.00
$112,969,082.00
$178,268,373.00
3.01%
3.20%
4.89%
4.28%
74.67%
265.63%
33.55%
36.62%
48.75%
$391,000,000.00
$8,783,013.00
2.26%
$302,059,726.00
$317,515,531.00
$336,155,979.00
$379,032,557.00
$148,512,700.00
$143,195,683.00
$211,393,081.00
$219,583,165.00
$240,319,081.00
$323,843,000.00
$332,612,000.00
$350,299,000.00
$349,730,000.00
$230,803,000.00
$236,708,881.00
$209,909,833.00
$211,778,184.00
$246,546,713.00
$255,734,059.00
$303,500,000.00
$311,692,598.00
$325,300,000.00
$13,618,912.00
$8,185,625.00
$8,843,705.00
$8,824,365.00
$475,813.00
$571,637.00
$552,169.00
$602,049.00
$415,010.00
$16,333,361.00
$15,627,848.00
$23,523,206.00
$29,804,936.00
$6,643,724.00
$900,329.00
$597,704.00
$359,525.00
$360,393.00
$107,702.00
$931,430.00
$1,027,717.00
$526,143.00
4.99%
2.72%
2.68%
2.39%
0.32%
0.41%
0.28%
0.33%
0.18%
5.19%
4.86%
6.89%
8.73%
2.89%
0.38%
0.28%
0.17%
0.15%
0.04%
0.31%
0.33%
0.16%
29
Univ. of Tennessee
Wake Forest Univ.
Georgetown Univ.
Averages
Averages
(excluding WFU
and NYU)
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
$318,000,000.00
$329,800,000.00
$240,280,186.00
$238,552,796.00
$246,397,068.00
$284,211,680.00
$286,280,573.00
$146,382,536.00
$185,609,000.00
$148,686,377.00
$162,084,439.00
$227,597,563.00
$197,683,529.00
$135,059,000.00
$144,957,000.00
$230,637,658.00
$235,780,755.00
$ 649,128,979.54
$1,442,697.00
$1,305,661.00
$1,148,595.00
$1,059,390.00
$3,647,935.00
$1,281,658.00
$213,059.00
$60,588,512.00
$71,226,905.00
$90,005,640.00
$95,636,362.00
$85,991,743.00
$8,462,835.00
$3,071,463.00
$6,433,943.00
$9,185,079.00
$8,044,094.00
$ 30,536,818.47
0.45%
0.40%
0.53%
0.50%
1.57%
0.57%
0.15%
41.39%
38.37%
60.53%
59.00%
37.78%
4.29%
2.32%
4.50%
4.00%
3.42%
7.35%
$ 18,815,055.21
2.37%
*Commercialization Revenue is adjusted to exclude revenues distributed to other institutions.
30
Table 7.3
31
Figure 8.1
Criteria for selecting programs for strategic investment and support
These criteria each need to be weighted according to the current situation and aspirations of a given
organization.

Exhibit current strength in funding, citations, or appropriate impact metric in the field

Have active champions with national peer recognition

Explore frontiers of an area of knowledge or practice

Bring together partners who have not previously associated, creating potential for disruptive
innovation

Long-term potential for creating economic development

Pursue fundamental advances or paradigm changes in well-defined focus areas

Potential to leap-frog the competition

Distinguish the organization versus peers

Enhance overall organizational performance by linking multiple units or areas of expertise (for
universities: interdisciplinary programs)

Produce knowledge that is transferable between several fields

Adequate proof-of-concept

Potential for short-term enhancement of organization’s revenue

Social significance (i.e. a “grand challenge”) – for example, improve water quality, clean energy,
human health, environmental sustainability, industrial competitiveness, public policy, peace
processes, or social justice. This can also include social science, humanities, and art ideas –
example, the Declaration of Independence, architectural design, mapping global trade, graphics
in I-Phone apps, works of creativity including visual or performing arts exhibitions, etc.

High promise for breakthrough impact

Stimulate high-risk, high-reward exploration and collaboration

Highly functional team of people

Ability to create partnerships with external national and global partners

Potential to enhance culture of the organization (for example: through results or behaviors that
inspire others to use a similar model or behavior, or to take new actions
32
BIOSKETCH: Thomas C. Skalak, VP for Research
Thomas C. Skalak is Vice President for Research and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the
University of Virginia.
As Vice President for Research at UVa, Tom is responsible for the
integration and enhancement of scholarship, research, and commercialization activities across
UVa’s eleven schools, multiple research centers, and external partners. He is leading universitywide strategic programs, including multidisciplinary groups in environmental sustainability,
innovation, energy systems, big data, collaboration, and biosciences. He led the launch of the
university-wide OpenGrounds initiative, designed to create places and programs that inspire
creative innovation at the intersection of technology, science, the arts, and humanities; the UVa
Venture Summit, which brings over $10 billion in active venture capital to UVa each year to discuss
windows on the future of emerging fields; and the UVa Bay Game, an interactive computer
simulation game that predicts behaviors of the nation’s largest estuary and watershed in relation to
the human communities, agricultural and fisheries practices, and land development policies that
surround it. The university’s goal is to integrate the unique resources of a comprehensive research
and learning organization to explore, discover, and invent, bringing diverse talents and approaches
to bear on major societal problems and producing innovation that drives the creative economy.
Dr. Skalak served as Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UVa from 2001-2008. He
received the B.E.S. in Bioengineering from The Johns Hopkins University in 1979 and the Ph.D. in
Bioengineering from U.C.S.D. in 1984. Dr. Skalak is past President of the American Institute of
Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), which represents over 50,000 professionals, and a
past-President of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). Dr. Skalak is a recognized expert in
complex system modeling, biomechanics, and blood vessel growth, and is a distinguished educator,
having designed, implemented, and taught in a top-rated undergraduate bioengineering program
emphasizing hands-on experiential learning in laboratories, design teams, and corporate
internships. He has given more than 150 invited talks on innovation and bioengineering
throughout the world to industrial partners including Fortune 500 companies, academic groups,
and government agencies including the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Competitiveness, and has
delivered short courses for R&D groups at corporate clients such as Abbott Laboratories. He has
been a consultant to major device and pharmaceutical firms, as well as several start-up ventures,
including Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic, and Target Therapeutics. Tom was the founding director
of the UVa-Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership that has produced a 7-1 return
on investment and a co-managed fund with Johnson & Johnson that links faculty and students in
engineering, bioscience, and business with the aim of delivering new products to clinical use and
commercialization. He is Program Director of the world’s largest bioengineering network,
BMEplanet, with support of the NSF Partnerships for Innovation program, connecting bioengineers
in over 50 countries spanning 6 continents. He serves as reviewer for NIH, NSF, Howard Hughes
Medical Institute, Science Foundation Ireland, and more than 30 scientific journals.
33
Glossary:
Facilities & Administrative (F&A) or Indirect Costs: Indirect costs are those costs which cannot be
identified readily and specifically with a particular sponsored project or activity. Shared resources such
as a library or the heating, electricity and maintenance of buildings housing multiple projects are
common examples of costs that fall within this category.
NSF Research Expenditure Definitions:
Organized research means all research and development activities of an institution that are separately
budgeted and accounted for. It includes:
(1) Sponsored research: means all research and development activities that are sponsored by
Federal and non-Federal agencies and organizations. This term includes activities involving the
training of individuals in research techniques (commonly called research training) where such
activities utilize the same facilities as other research and development activities and where such
activities are not included in the instruction function.
(2) University research: means all research and development activities that are separately
budgeted and accounted for by the institution under an internal application of institutional
funds. University research shall be combined with sponsored research under the function of
organized research.
a. Federal Government. Awards for R&D (including direct and reimbursed indirect costs) by all
agencies of the Federal Government.
b. State and local governments. Funds for R&D (including direct and reimbursed indirect costs)
from State, county, municipal, or other local governments and their agencies. Including State
funds that support R&D at agricultural and other experiment stations.
c. Industry. All awards for R&D (including direct and reimbursed indirect costs) from profit-making
organizations, whether engaged in production, distribution, research, service, or other activities.
Does not include awards from nonprofit foundations financed by industry; these are included
under “All other sources.”
d. Institution funds. Funds, including related indirect costs, that your institution spent for R&D
activities from the following unrestricted sources: general-purpose State or local government
appropriations; general-purpose awards from industry, foundations, or other outside sources;
tuition and fees; endowment income; gifts; and other institutional funds. In addition, includes
the institution's on-campus and off-campus unreimbursed indirect costs associated with
externally funded R&D projects, including mandatory and voluntary cost sharing.
e. All other sources. Include awards for R&D (including direct and reimbursed indirect costs) from
nonprofit foundations and voluntary health agencies as well as from all other sources not
elsewhere classified. Also include gifts from individuals that are restricted by the donor to
research. Funds from foundations that are affiliated with, or granted solely to your institution,
should be included under “Institution funds.” Funds for R&D received from a health agency that
is a unit of a State or local government should be included under “State and local governments.”
34
Katherine
Becker,
fourth year
UG,
combined
her interest
in art,
archeology,
and
iconography
[Type a quote from the document or the
summary of an interesting point. You can position
the text box anywhere in the document. Use the
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pull quote text box.]
Kyle Teegarden, second-year UVa undergraduate
student with finished wind turbine he designed
and built near Hood River, OR
Andrew Adderley (SIE ’14) and Raymond
Vargas (CS ’14) are part of a UVa team
funded by the Commonwealth Center
for Advanced Manufacturing
The UVa student experience: “The Global Ideal in Research-Based Education”
Undergraduate students engage in research-based learning experiences, and carry their experiences
into the world. UVa students become independent leaders through experience.
35