The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s research enterprise has achieved significant growth in its breadth, depth and sophistication during the last two decades. Nebraska faculty are conducting highly impactful work, publishing in top journals, pursuing large interdisciplinary grants with greater success and making discoveries that are receiving national and international attention. Nebraska Innovation Campus has expanded in space and in the number of industry partners engaging with the university. Successes like these provide a firm foundation for continued growth Nebraska aspires to: the level of excellence in research, scholarship and creative activity envisioned in the report of the N|150 Commission and the N2025 Strategic Plan, and the successes demonstrated by our Big Ten peers and AAU member institutions.
In the N|150 State of the University Address, leadership emphasized a vision for Nebraska to be a transformative, world-leading, 21st-century, mission-integrated land-grant university without walls. The vision included a research and creative activity enterprise approaching $450 million, prioritized and resource-enhanced around a deepening commitment to solving wicked problems and grand challenges important to Nebraska. In his inaugural Charter Day message, Chancellor Rodney D. Bennett praised the road map in the N2025 strategic plan and our progress toward being the model for public flagship institutions across the country. Further, Chancellor Bennett emphasized the university’s unique combination of intelligence, strength and determination that makes UNL a place for big ideas and life-changing, transformative work limited only by our own imagination.
The Office of Research and Innovation — in partnership with departmental executive officers, center directors, deans, associate deans for research and vice chancellors — carries out its mission to promote a culture and environment for success in research, scholarship creative endeavors and economic impact. Success will be demonstrated by extramural funding, book and highly cited journal publications, patents, business startups, societal impacts and more. Nebraska’s talented faculty will be recognized for these achievements through external honors and awards. While conducting its mission-driven work, the Office of Research and Innovation team values:
- People with whom we work and partner;
- Efficient and robust supports;
- Bold ideas and entrepreneurial mindsets;
- Diversity and collaboration; and
- Integrity in all we do.
In sum, campuswide research, scholarship and economic growth initiatives are guided by the report of the N|150 Commission, the N2025 strategic plan, longstanding University of Nebraska Board of Regents metrics, and AAU membership principles and indicators. This Roadmap for Research and Innovation details the Office of Research and Innovation’s role in reaching our core aspirations, along with the strategies and tactics for doing so and metrics for tracking progress.
Research, creative activity and economic impact are key components to achieving the vision and mission described by the N|150 Commission. These core aspirations and goals, outlined in the N|150 Vision and Mission document, will guide our path.
Aspiration 1: Enable research to transform lives
By advancing knowledge, solving the world’s challenges, and deepening our understanding of humanity, we enhance quality of life in the state of Nebraska and beyond. By connecting our research and academic enterprises, our research, scholarship and creative activity shape the education we provide to undergraduate, graduate and professional students.
Aspiration 2: Continue building a culture of collaboration and inventiveness
Nebraska is known for fostering a culture of intensive research collaboration and inventiveness, and for producing and disseminating research of exceptional quality and significance.
Emphasizing entrepreneurial partnerships on and off campus, we tailor our research and creative activity around and through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborations. We recognize and support the full capacity of students as participants and colleagues in ongoing research at the university.
Aspiration 3: Ensure every person and every interaction matter
We aim to lead U.S. public universities in affordability and accessibility to a world-class education, inviting students from Nebraska, the nation and world to join us in creating a better life. In our community, we are committed to ensuring a deep appreciation for diversity, inclusive excellence and each individual’s contributions to the greater good. We attract, educate and support students whose talent and work ethic will shape their communities for decades to come.
Aspiration 4: Build community through engagement
We serve as a catalyst for growth, prosperity and cultural enrichment for Nebraska and beyond in ways that redefine relationships between 21st-century research universities and their communities.
Strategy 1: Enhance the quality and stature of research, scholarship, creative endeavors and economic development at Nebraska.
Tactics:
- Enable and incentivize interdisciplinary teams to harness the intellectual capital essential to advance fundamental knowledge and address society’s grand challenges.
- Support the recruitment, development and retention of faculty who are active in research, scholarship, creative endeavors and economic development.
- Diversify and increase the capacity and effectiveness of staff in the Office of Research and Innovation and ensure staffing is scaled relative to growth and regulatory requirements for sponsored research administration.
- Position pre-tenured faculty to establish high-quality, competitive and recognized programs of research/innovation. Provide ongoing support and development to enhance capacity, competitiveness and recognition for mid-career and senior faculty.
- Leverage competitive intelligence approaches to compile strategic information about faculty, sponsors and peers and create actionable insights that can help better position Nebraska faculty for success (e.g., grant readiness assessments, award trajectories, etc.).
- Leverage the expertise of staff in the Office of Research and Innovation as well as internal or external mentors to increase the success of all faculty pursuing extramural funding, honors and awards.
- Build a campus culture that celebrates the recognition of research excellence.
- Coordinate state-of-the-art instrumentation and infrastructure to enable discovery, creativity and innovation and increase competitiveness for extramural funding and enhance societal impact.
- Foster a shared campus culture for the responsible conduct of research.
- Facilitate successful patents, licensing and business startups based on faculty, staff and student intellectual property.
- Communicate the impact of Nebraska research, scholarship, creative endeavors and economic development on the state, nation and world.
- Support established and emerging approaches to broadly disseminate research findings and foster greater understanding of research and economic development impacts.
- Support open access knowledge exchange, including infrastructure for data management and sharing.
- Partner with the Offices of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies to support research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
Strategy 2: Cultivate and steward the internal and external partnerships necessary to advance research and innovation at Nebraska.
Tactics:
- Make science, research and creative activity accessible across the state and the nation through the University of Nebraska Press and the University of Nebraska State Museum.
- Encourage a growth mindset among university-wide research centers, and leverage centers as hubs for research advancement. Strengthen standard practices for center operation and evaluation.
- Prioritize core facilities as coordinated access points to research instrumentation and expertise.
- Leverage university-wide research centers and core facilities, while positioning them to be as revenue neutral as possible and encouraging collaboration across the NU system and beyond.
- Collaborate with campus and community partners to develop faculty throughout their careers, identify large-scale funding opportunities and provide the roadmap required to be competitive.
- Implement a purposeful plan for federal agency engagement that comprises activities distributed across the administrative, faculty and institutional levels.
- Advance strategic university-industry alliances and technology commercialization to increase research expenditures from the private sector and enhance university and economic growth.
- Strategically pursue opportunities for academic-based industrial development and industrial-based academic development.
- Leverage Nebraska Innovation Campus and other economic development activities to create opportunities for private sector companies to establish synergistic research partnerships with UNL and support student training and workforce development.
- Support research communication skill-building for faculty, staff and students.
- Forge intentional relationships with other universities and community-based and private sector organizations to help ensure research, scholarship, creative activity and economic development activities are relevant, co-created and use inspired.
- Advocate for policies that support innovation and encourage an increase in industry-academia and nonprofit foundation partnerships.
To track outcomes and progress, the Office of Research and Innovation will use a set of research- relevant metrics taken from the N2025 Strategic Plan and the AAU membership indicators. The metrics are divided into five categories, each representing an area of targeted growth for Nebraska’s research enterprise.
Scale
- Achieve $450 million in annual research expenditures, including at least $30 million from the private sector and $10 million in licensing income.
- Achieve annual growth (on a three-year rolling average) of 5% in federal research expenditures, 5% in books, 5% in citations and 5% in science and engineering postdoctoral research associates.
Participation
- Increase the number of faculty participating in extramurally funded research, scholarship and creative activity by 5% annually on a three-year rolling average.
- Increase the number of faculty apportioned to do research, scholarship and creative activity by 5% annually on a three-year rolling average.
Reputation
- Increase the number of faculty receiving external honors and awards by 10% annually on a three-year rolling average.
- Increase graduate degrees (master’s and doctoral) awarded by 5% per year.
Interdisciplinary
- Increase extramural funding, scholarship and creative activities generated by interdisciplinary teams by 15% annually on a three-year rolling average.
Impact
- At least 50% of strategic research investments align with university-prioritized Grand Challenges.
- Increase the number of U.S. patents issued by 70% and the number of licenses executed by 50%, and form seven research-based startup companies annually, based on university technologies.
A critical factor in UNL’s research success over the last two decades has been private funding raised through the University of Nebraska Foundation, as well as funding from other sources, such as the Nebraska Research Initiative, the University of Nebraska Programs of Excellence and the Nebraska Tobacco Settlement Trust Fund. Funds from these sources have supported faculty hires; provided professorships, fellowships and scholarships; funded cutting-edge research instrumentation and new construction and renovation leading to improved research infrastructure; and seeded pilot projects and initiatives that have grown into larger-scale research successes. These investments have helped attract talented faculty, staff and students and impressed funding agencies with UNL’s unique capabilities. Continued growth in research outcomes will require a continued collaboration with these and other generous partners to further expand research infrastructure and resources, including faculty and staff hiring. Further, university policies that support and encourage an increasing research and economic development portfolio will be essential for achieving these goals and outcomes.
Monitoring the excellence of the faculty and university is an increasingly difficult task, yet it is critical to developing the best strategies to meet our goals. UNL has developed NuRamp, a robust system for tracking research funding, and acquired licenses for software systems such as Academic Analytics and Web of Science, which facilitate analysis of research productivity using various measures. In concert with the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analytics, the Office of Research and Innovation will use these analytical tools and resources to better understand UNL’s scholarly strengths and relative market position among other research universities.
