Research Council Meeting

Friday, August 24

Members Present: Alberto Segre, Keyan Zarei, Jason Rantanen, Diane Rohlman, Kevin Kelly, George Hospodarsky, Guowei Qi, Barbara Eckstein, Jodi Graff, Jessica Boyle (phone), Jennifer Fiegel, Jane Nachtman

Members Absent: Jane Paulsen, Steven Mickelsen, John Nelson, Amanda Haes, Rebecca Taugher

Others in Attendance: John Keller, Richard Hichwa, Ann Ricketts, Bob Kirby, Michael Weaver

Item 1:  Welcome & Introductions (Segre)

• Minutes from the May 18, 2018 meeting were approved unanimously with one typo correction.

Item 2:  Charge to Research Council (Keller)

• Keller presented the charge to the research council, found in chapter 2.8(19)b 2.8(19)b of the University Operations Manual.  Keller asked that the council enhance their advisory role as part of that charge. 

Item 3:  VPR Search Committee Update (Weaver)

• Weaver discussed the job listing on the search firm (Isaacson, Miller) website, as well as upcoming dates of the search committee. 

Item 4:  Central Services Advisory Committee (Keller)

• Keller discussed the role of the Central Services Advisory Committees and their relationship to the new institutional budget model.  The committees function as a vetting body for requests to the Budget Review Board. 
• During the last Budget Review Board meeting, OVPR made two funding requests.  One was accepted (Electronic Research Administration) and the other was not (University of Iowa Research Foundation funding). 
• OVPR has made budgetary adjustments based on the recommendations of the committee and as a result, approximately one million dollars has been reduced from the organization’s deficit, a 20% decrease.  Some operations have been moved or reduced to realize these reductions.  Specifically, the furloughs at the State Hygienic Laboratory and the closing of the Mobile Museum.  Additionally, the High Throughput Screening Facility and the Consortium for Substance Abuse will be relocated.  VPR was able to add $100 thousand in additional subvention for animal costs. 
• OVPR will be opening a new east-side core facility to provide instrumentation to physical science users.

Item 5:  Economic Development Updates (Keller/Hichwa/Kerbeshian)

• President Harreld plans to separate out economic development from the research enterprise.  The structure is still under consideration.  UIRF funding has yet to be addressed.
• Kerbeshian discussed the recent developments in the revision to the University’s intellectual property policy.  The $100k floor for distributions to the UIRF will be eliminated. DEOs want to make sure that the colleges still receive a share of the revenues so that there will be more buy-in from the colleges earlier on in the process.  There is a mechanism being worked on to reward colleges and departments for their early investments in moving technologies forward.  Negotiations will have to be made in situations where faculty are appointed jointly or where centers are involved.  A motion to approve the policy was made by Eckstein, seconded by Hospodarsky and passed unanimously by the Research Council.
• Kerbeshian noted that an outside company has been retained that fits UI intellectual property with needs of outside companies.  Kerbeshian would like to find ways to get in touch with faculty and departments that could benefit from this relationship.  Graff suggested connecting with Suzanne Malo and working with the APR tags.  Segre suggested searching the abstracts from UI routing forms.

Item 6:  Roundtable/2018/19 topics for Research Council

• Potential topics mentioned:
  • Responsible Conduct of Research for all Graduate Students – Authorship and plagiarism are frequent issues; UI could include courses tailored to specific disciplines for relevancy.
  • IRB – there are complaints about IRB times.  RC should look at metrics and talk about them with OVPR leadership.
  • Shared Credit – new budget model makes this important due to F&A distributions.
  • F&A discussion.
  • Alternative sources for research funding.