Annual Report of the

Academic Senate Committee on Research

2000-2001

This Annual report provides a brief summary of the many activities of the Committee on Research (COR). The calls, guidelines, forms, application deadlines, and other pertinent information about the programs administered by COR, are available from the Academic Senate website at http://academicsenate.ucdavis.edu/committee_cor.htm

Research Travel Grants: Starting with the 2001-2002 Call for the Research Travel Grant program (04/24/01), COR adopted an on-line application system that makes the entire application and award process paperless (travel vouchers for reimbursement after the trip still require paper). The Vice-Chancellor for Research granted COR’s request for signature authority, which further simplifies the award process. To date 118 applications have been received through the on-line system, of which 69 have been approved, 1 was denied, and 48 are pending.

COR members met with the Academic Computing Coordinating Council-Research and Vice Provost Bruno to explore the possibility to extend on-line applications to the Faculty Research Grant program and to use the MyUCDavis web portal as an entry point with secure authentication. The Committee believes this would be very desirable but this project is still in the planning stage.

Faculty Research Grants: This year, the committee sent out a call for applications in two Faculty Research Grant (FRG) programs, the 4K and 12K program, so called after the maximum allowable budget for each program. These programs replace the 1.5K, 3K, and 10K programs that were in effect in previous years. With this unanimously supported change the committee hoped to attract a larger number high-quality applications, and to make a smaller number of slightly larger awards, thus supporting the most promising proposals. While this was a successful attempt, understandably, the committee also received critical responses from a substantial number of faculty. It is expected that the FRG program will again be on the agenda of COR next fall.

As intended, the FRG call resulted in a high number of high-quality applications: 262 for the 4K program (to be compared with 207 combined for the 1.5K and 3K program last year), and 71 for the 12K program (compared to 62 for the 10K program last year). This represents an overall increase of 24% in the number of applications. In the 4K program COR made 173 awards (66% of the applications received), for a total amount of $613,670. In the 12K program, 29 awards (41% of the applications), for a total amount of $320,757. Compared to last year, this represents a 43% increase in total dollars awarded in the FRG program.

New Faculty Research Grants: COR received 31 applications, of which 28 (90%) were funded.

Junior Faculty Research Fellowships: For the first time this year, eligible faculty who wished to apply for a Junior Faculty Research Fellowship were required to submit a proposal in one (or both) of the Faculty Research Grant programs. Junior Faculty Research Fellowships were added as a summer salary supplement when this Faculty Research Grant was approved for an award. COR received 13 applications, of which 8 (76%) were funded.

Faculty Incentive Awards: COR has extended the deadline for the 1999-2000 Faculty Incentive Award pilot program twice (first to 12/01/00, then to 12/01/01), but received only 4 applications so far. One grant writing mentor was requested and found. A subcommittee is currently investigating the reasons for the limited success of the pilot program and will report to COR at its June meeting.

Limited Submissions Subcommittee: At the request of the Vice Chancellor for Research, COR reviewed pre-proposals for approximately 20 extramural funding programs that limit the number of proposals that can be submitted per campus (about 100 proposals total). The Limited Submissions Subcommittee, with Roger McDonald as chair, selected a “permanent” review panel of campus faculty with a broad range of expertise. Serving as a member of this review panel is a valuable committee service to the campus and should be recognized as such. The Limited Submissions Subcommittee also reviewed the Davis proposals for the Regents Budget, and the 12K Faculty Research Grants.

At the Provost’s request, COR reviewed the research proposals submitted to the Faculty Development Program.

COR participated in the interviews for Vice-Chancellor for Research and submitted its comments to the Chancellor. A letter summarizing increasing concerns among the faculty about the performance of the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research (OVCR) was sent to Academic Senate Chair Gibeling. COR members also participated in the Administrative Unit Review of the OVCR. The Chair of COR also met with individual faculty members, and with Dean Langland to discuss various concerns regarding funding for research, in particular in the Humanities and the Arts.

COR received and discussed the following reports from other academic senate or administrative committees and supplied comments for each of them: 1) Proposal to establish an organized research unit by the UC Davis Cancer Center, 2) Center for Healthy Aging, 3) Quinquennial Review of Crocker Nuclear Laboratory, 4) Proposed Revisions to APM Sections Concerning Non-Senate Academic Appointees.

Vice Chancellor for Research Kevin Smith, Associate Vice Chancellor Andre Lauchli, and Academic Senate Chair Jeffery Gibeling, have each attended one or more COR meetings and supplied information on a variety of issues concerning research at Davis.

Members of COR served on the following committees ex-officio or by appointment: Academic Computing Coordinating Council (AC4, Subcommittee on Research Computing), Research Advisory Committee, Principle Investigator’s Council, and Academic Senate Executive Council.

Additional COR members participated in meetings of the Academic Computing Coordinating Council-Research to discuss a project to set up an on-line applications system for the Faculty Research Grants and to integrate this system and the Travel Grant on-line application system with the web portal MyUCDavis. COR members participated in a meeting with representatives from the Academic Computing Coordinating Council, the MyUCDavis development team, and Accounting and Financial Services (DaFiS), to discuss PI access to the Grants and Contracts report system. This will also be realized using the web portal MyUCDavis.

The previous chair of COR, Tu Jarvis, served as the UCD representative on the University Committee on Research Policy (UCORP) and has regularly reported on UCORP activities at COR meetings. A major issue this year was the re-negotiation of the UC-National Lab management contract with the Department of Energy. UCORP has setup a committee to follow Lab-UC relations on a permanent basis.

Respectfully submitted,

Bruno Nachtergaele, Chair

Steffen Abel

Anna Maria Busse Berger

Stephen Cramer

Jesse Joad

Roger McDonald

James Murray

Michael Smith

Rosemary Smith

Mark Thurmond

Mani Tripathi

Aram Yengoyan