Aligning and Delivering Research Metrics That Support the University's Goal of Becoming a Top Three Public Research University

Abstract

As the University seeks to become one of the top three public research universities in the world within the next ten years, it will become more and more important that we have appropriate and sustainable ways to measure our success, particularly, as it relates to research. So the question is how do we measure excellence in research activity?

As Tim Mulcahy, Vice President for Research, noted in his December 2006 status of Research report to the Board of Regents: “No single research metric is reflective of overall quality or prominence.” His report showed that the university remains one of the top public research universities and has a growing, well-balanced research portfolio that is seeing notable increases in research funding and technology commercialization. However, competition among research universities for declining research dollars is increasing significantly; therefore, the University must continue to work aggressively through its strategic positioning efforts and initiatives to compete successfully for research dollars.

For many years, the Office of the Vice President for Research had collected statistics on the level of research activity at the University, such as numbers of proposals and awards and the level of expenditures for research activity. In addition, reports from entities such as the National Science Foundation and The Center for Measuring University Performance, provide data on comparable institutions across the country.

This project will review the various metrics collected by the institution and external organizations and after careful analysis will determine what additional information related to research activity is needed in order to demonstrate that the institution is making progress toward our goal.