The University's fiscal year 2003 research report, released recently, revealed a 26.2-percent growth rate in research expenditures over the past year. The better-than-average growth indicates the progress the University has made since it began focusing on increasing research as part of its strategic plan, "Building on Excellence."
Notably, the Pratt School of Engineering and the Nicholas School of the Environment saw 50.9-percent and 36.8-percent increases in research expenditures over fiscal year 2002. Arts and Sciences also increased by 10.1 percent.
"The annual report [helps us] get a sense of how the research enterprise at Duke is doing," said James Siedow, vice provost for research.
"The Provost's Office, particularly through 'Building on Excellence,' is promoting a more aggressive culture of grantmanship among all the sciences," Siedow added. "All you have to do is look at the ongoing capital improvements--[the Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences], the new 'Mouse House,' the French Science Center and the North Building renovation--to see the kinds of investments the University is making to upgrade the infrastructure for the sciences campus."
Pratt School of Engineering
Over the past two years, Pratt has seen a 74.2-percent increase in research expenditures. Three years ago, the majority of Pratt research was funded through the National Institute of Health and the Department of Defense and channeled into biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering, respectively, Kristina Johnson, Pratt dean, said.
"The strategy we've employed to double our research expenditures is that we have developed four strategic research initiatives--bioengineering, photonics, materials science and sensor and simulators," Johnson said. She added that diversifying research interests has led to grants from more sources including industry and the National Science Foundation.
Pratt's strategy has been to "focus on a few things and do them well," concentrate on research that spans disciplines and leverage opportunities to work together with the School of Medicine, the Nicholas School and Arts and Sciences departments.
"What these initiatives do is they draw talent across departments and across schools at Duke, creating the opportunity to make major breakthroughs at the boundary of disciplines," she said. Interdisciplinary and multi-investigator research has increased significantly over the past few years. In FY '01, there were no proposals submitted or grants awarded to more than one faculty member. In FY '03, there were 20 multi-investigator awards granted and 53 such proposals submitted.
The addition of 25-to-29 new faculty over the past four years has helped Pratt ramp up its research activity.
"Many of those [newer faculty] at the associate professor level [are] contributing to the number of grants awarded and the number submitted, but they haven't had as much time to spend the money," Johnson said. "Faculty see the CIEMAS coming online everyday, so they know if they write the grant they'll have space to do the research." Although Siedow said this year's growth rate of 50.9 percent is probably not sustainable in the long haul, he pointed to the increased faculty and Johnson's leadership as promising of substantial growth nonetheless.
"The culture under Dean Johnson really promotes an entrepreneurial culture, so growth of a high order could be with us for several years to come from them," he said.
Arts and Sciences
Arts and Sciences also witnessed a significant increase in research expenditures over the past two years--up 29.8 percent.
"If we could up 10 percent a year on average, that's a really strong performance," Dean of the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences William Chafe said. "I'm especially pleased that the last two years we've been going up at double that rate."
Chafe added that although he was unsure if a 20 percent growth rate would continue to be feasible, 10 percent growth was sustainable. The top nine departments in Arts and Sciences comprise 88 percent of Arts and Sciences research expenditures, Siedow said. Again leading all departments with $13.8 million, public policy accounted for 21.2 percent of Arts and Sciences' overall $65 million in research expenditures. Following public policy were physics, biology, computer science, chemistry, the Center for Demographic Studies, psychology and brain sciences, statistics and mathematics.
Nicholas School of the Environment
The rate of growth at the Nicholas School parallels that of Pratt, though on a smaller order. In the same two-year period, the Nicholas School witnessed a 53-percent increase in research expenditures.
"I would certainly hope that we can sustain double-digit increases, but sustaining a greater than 30-percent increase is probably unrealistic," said Dean of the Nicholas School William Schlesinger. Although Pratt and Arts and Sciences usually draw most of their funding from federal sources, the Nicholas School gets a lesser percentage from the federal government, receiving significant funding from the State of North Carolina and private foundations.
Schlesinger pointed to space limitations as one of the most significant hindrances to increased research. The lack of space in the Nicholas School, currently at capacity in the Levine Science Research Center, restricts the number of graduate students with space to carry out actual research, he said.
Despite this constraint, there has been a significant number of "big" projects, including some major initiatives in environmental health and conservation biology. Schlesinger pointed to the quality and impact of the school's faculty and increasing recognition that the environment is suffering significant human impact as the prime reasons for the increase in research.
"I'm excited by the prospects we've got here and what it means for the Nicholas School's role in working on the nation's environmental problems," he said.
Other Schools
The report also reviewed the Fuqua School of Business, the Divinity School and the School of Law. By virtue of these disciplines, Siedow said, none of them is traditionally significantly dependent on grants.
"In general, neither the total amount of monies raised nor the number of grants that Law, Fuqua and Divinity get yearly are sufficient for use to be overly concerned about the movements seem from year to year," Siedow said.
Andrew Gerst contributed to this story.
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