University seeks to increase grant proposals, fund more research

02/09/10 - The University of Rhode Island's Research Office is seeking to increase URI's collaborative research funding through the development of grant proposals. Vice President of Research and Economic Development, Peter Alfonso, said this will increase the school's research proposal productivity across campus and disciplinary lines.

He said that doing so will improve the climate for interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research funding.

Alfonso said that interdisciplinary funding involves the merging of two separate disciplines to create an entire new one, whereas multi-disciplinary research funding involves the collaboration of people from two different disciplines.

He said that due to the Research Office having a much more efficient and healthy partnership between the research administration and faculty, URI is further configured to support multi-disciplinary work.

Alfonso said he owes this efficiency to the Academic Plan Task Force, made up of a select group of faculty members.

"This task force looks at the various elements within the institution and helps them do things efficiently," he said. "Its perspective is URI in its entirety rather than focusing on a few chosen disciplines."

By supporting this kind of work, Alfonso said that URI will help increase the number of grants the university sends out and receives.

He said that the Internal Awards Council for Research, which is a group of faculty that advises him, has seen the amount of internal awards granted to the university increase from 80,000 to 150,000 dollars this past year alone.

"Faculty can receive grants by submitting to the federal government external proposals that cross different disciplines," Alfonso said. "Then, the faculty gets money through either direct costs or indirect costs."

Direct costs are shared between university disciplines, and apply directly to the cause or experiment they are intended for. Meanwhile, indirect costs are applied to costs needed to sustain the research enterprise, such as the maintenance of a lab.

He said that the research enterprise is self-sustaining, which makes it increasingly important to write these external grants.

To continue to improve URI's economic development, the school can, through grants, partner with and get involved with the private sector's research, Alfonso said.

"For example, Rhode Island wants to be one of the leaders in ocean energy solutions," he said. "So, if faculty work with the state and focus on the topic, companies that work in ocean energy solutions will be brought into the state."

He said that this therefore improves the economy of URI and the state as a whole.

On an interdisciplinary level, he added that URI should add more interdisciplinary classes that involve worldly problems. Alfonso said that these interdisciplinary courses would incorporate sciences, social sciences, the arts, and an array of other disciplines.

He said a good example of this is the field of nursing, which incorporates disciplines ranging from ethics to science to religion.

"Learning itself must become interdisciplinary," Alfonso said. "A curriculum should be centered around interdisciplinary studies because it is the nature of the world.