Research@UIC > OVCR Mission and Goals

OVCR Strategic Goals And Mission

High Level UIC Goals/Mission:

1. Be recognized for the quality of our research and scholarly output.
2. Create a positive research environment and infrastructure that will attract and retain the highest quality scholars and students (faculty/staff/student friendly = good).
3. Develop and maintain high-impact scholarly output, working within, across and between disciplines to answer important societal questions and contribute to the social, political, environmental and economic well being of the city/state/region/nation.
4. Develop a sustainable portfolio of scholarship supported by administration operating at high standards of governance, accountability and efficiency.
5. Leveraging the strength in diversity among UIC’s faculty, staff, student and community population – create unique training opportunities for underrepresented groups/minorities as future academic leaders.

Our progress and achievement measured by:

1. Publications and citations (national, internationally-leading academic/scholarly journals).
2. Receipt of high-impact awards for research, scholarship, and creative work.
3. Induction into high impact professional groups (e.g., academies) or receipt of high impact awards or prizes (e.g., fellowships, juried competitions, etc.).
4. Entrepreneurial activity (e.g., disclosures, patents, licensure, etc.).
5. Monitoring of performance in external evaluations and surveys (e.g., NSF Survey of Academic R&D Expenditures report).
6. Monitoring of internal strategic performance indicators relating to research income (total $$$, $/academic FTE, $/sq’, etc.) and “productivity” (clinical trial enrollment, community engagement, etc.).

Action Items:

1. Align research along scholarly themes (rather than organizational structures) to stimulate interdisciplinary collaborations and maximize leveraging of established expertise.  Identified themes will:  1) solidify existing impactful programs, and 2) promote growth and development (toward distinction) in select, strategically identified program areas.
2. Formalize themes and establish VCR theme-based advisory councils charged with 1) evaluating opportunities and strengths in each theme domain, 2) creating on-going forums for generating new initiatives and collaborations, 3) serving as an implementation arm in response to external initiatives (“UIC leaves no stone unturned”), and 4) development and review of “request for proposals” for targeted OVCR funding initiatives/investments.
3. Establish special working groups (with select faculty stakeholders) focused on IRB/contract, animal, and pre-award processing issues/challenges.  Working groups would be charged to deliver recommendations for operational/procedural improvements on 4-6 month timeline.
4. Conduct web-based “research & scholarly interest” survey of UIC research community and establish accompanying database for use in targeting funding opportunities and promoting collaborations. 
5. Begin content overhaul of OVCR webpage (align with research themes, focus on faculty accomplishments & institutional metrics of scholarly activity, streamlined for ease of use in navigating research policies & procedures, dashboard tracking progress in each OVCR metric).
6. Identify, acknowledge and publicize UIC’s accomplishment and ranking among public universities, academic medical institutions, and state institutions in areas of scholarly performance.
7. Establish timeline and implementation plan for complete electronic submission and tracking of OVCR “regulatory services” (IRB protocols, grant submissions, animal care protocols, conflict of interest, etc.).
8. Continue critical oversight for research integrity and human and animal research while maintaining an environment conducive to the responsible conduct of research.

Proposed UIC Research/Scholarly Themes:

1. Community Disparities (Population Health, Successful Lives, STEM education, Social Justice, Educational and Economic Disparities)
2. Biomedical Discovery (Molecular Bioscience, Predictive Life Science, Genetics & Genomics)
3. Urban Resilience and the Global Environment (Global Change, Infrastructure, Sustainability)

Last updated: Tuesday, April 03, 2012.