Distributed to Brown campus June 21, 2023

 

In April, I shared with you the foundational efforts underway to make the necessary investments in our people, facilities and administrative support services to achieve the level of research excellence defined in the Operational Plan for Investing in Research released last fall. Nearly two months later, I am excited to announce the targeted investments in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget to significantly increase research support and build our capacity for expanding Brown’s research enterprise. 

 

In May, the Corporation of Brown University approved the University’s operating budget for FY24, which includes investments totaling approximately $25 million to help achieve our vision and goals for excellence and impact. In this letter, I outline how this will advance our research portfolio, directly support faculty and improve research administration. These investments are a necessary down payment on the important work we need to do to move Brown into the top tier of research universities.

 

As we established in the operational plan, we will scale impactful investments over the next five to seven years to make it easier to conduct research at Brown. In my April communication, I detailed the work underway to assess and build strength in research administration, research staff, computing infrastructure, faculty onboarding and a range of administrative processes. That work is ongoing and involves engaging stakeholders in virtually every area across campus to develop shared solutions on our path to elevating our research excellence. 

 

INVESTING IN OUR PEOPLE

 

Growing our research enterprise across disciplines will require significant investments in faculty, students and staff. Several investments were identified to support the goals of hiring more researchers and research administrators; enrolling more graduate students; and investing in our current people through compensation review, policy changes, training and development opportunities, and process improvement.

 

The FY24 budget increases capacity in the following areas:

 

Research Administration: Collectively, the University will hire in excess of two dozen staff to support research administration across the University, ranging from support for purchasing research supplies and equipment to faculty-facing grant support.

• Faculty Hires: The University will hire new high-profile, tenure-track faculty across the institution and across our four academic divisions: arts and humanities, social sciences, physical sciences and life sciences. Additionally, the University has invested in a visiting professor program focused on the humanities.

• Faculty Compensation: This spring, the Faculty Executive Committee (FEC) created a Task Force on Faculty Compensation. The task force is charged with gathering input on compensation issues and concerns; reviewing appropriate data, including benchmarking data with peer institutions, variation across fields and disciplines, and trend analysis; and assessing compensation issues in the context of University finances, including recommendations from the Task Force on the Status of Women Faculty, which proposed several ways to increase the representation of women faculty and support their advancement. This work will progress throughout the summer and next year, and the Task Force on Faculty Compensation will submit its recommendations to President Paxson by spring 2024.

• Graduate Students: I am pleased the University is able to significantly grow the number of incoming PhD students in the physical and life sciences. The Graduate School worked with individual academic programs, resulting in a 32% increase in the number of incoming students in the physical and life sciences under the Dean of the Faculty. Overall, incoming PhD students in the life and physical sciences across the University will grow by 16%. 

• Postdocs: We are investing in a pilot program to increase the number of postdocs on campus. On May 22, the Office of the Provost held a postdoc listening session with current and past postdocs to gather information that will inform recommendations for the incoming provost for this program. 

 

SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH SPACE 

 

Construction and renovation of research space will be the greatest expense arising from the operational plan. The FY24 budget provides increased support for core facilities, including significant investment in the Capital Equipment Research Fund administered by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR). Over the next five to seven years, the University will increase its investment to support central core facilities and infrastructure and will conduct an analysis to determine appropriate levels of ongoing support given our growth ambitions and plans to further expand the number of core facilities. 

 

We recognize the need to address deferred maintenance of existing research facilities, even as we plan for adding several hundred thousand square feet of new research space, including exciting progress on the new Integrated Life Sciences Building (ILSB). There are also opportunities to maximize existing research space through targeted reconfiguration or renovation. 

 

Some of the space investments approved for the FY24 budget include:

 

• Renovations for research space across campus, ranging from the arts and humanities to laboratory spaces in the Jewelry District.

• Facilities investments in lab maintenance staff, lab ventilation renovations and research equipment.

• Investment in a space study for the physical sciences at Brown to assess future needs for enhanced research facilities.

 

HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING AND SYSTEMS INVESTMENTS 

 

Some of the highest needs commonly expressed by researchers across the University are for high-performance computing infrastructure and support for and training on methods of computational and data analysis. The FY24 budget includes technology investments in high-performance computing research storage and infrastructure for this purpose. 

 

With the help of OVPR and the Office of Information Technology, we have identified areas requiring additional or upgraded technology systems to take our research capabilities to the next level. We are making core investments now to be able to support the systems we need for the future. 

 

The FY24 budget supports technology needs in the following areas:

 

• Technology Systems and Infrastructure. This includes, but is not limited to, implementing new research administration systems and continuing to upgrade the University’s data infrastructure. Brown’s new Chief Information Officer is developing a multi-year roadmap that will sequence the necessary upgrades to and investments in research systems.

• Research Administration Systems. This includes Institutional Biosafety, grant management, and the new system for the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which went live on May 15. 

 

IMPROVED RESEARCH SUPPORT SERVICES AND RESOURCES

 

The University will make significant investments over the coming years to streamline our administrative processes and make it easier for faculty to conduct research and for staff to support the research enterprise. This includes providing more assistance for researchers to apply for and secure grant funds. To that end, the FY24 budget includes support for major grant proposals, including retaining a consulting firm to help manage large grant submissions, like those for the CHIPS and Science Act and potential climate research-related grants.

 

In addition, the budget includes more competitive start-up packages for faculty to support scholarly research initiatives. These start-up funds are designed to ensure faculty are better resourced as they advance their research activities – from the conception of new ideas through the dissemination of the knowledge they create – through building new labs or renovating existing spaces, getting grant funding for research initiatives, or increasing faculty in their departments. 

 

Service support and faculty resources funded by the FY24 budget include:

 

• Funding to hire additional research staff to help faculty submit grant applications, streamline administrative processes, and provide high levels of support to researchers across campus.

• Enhanced start-up funds for faculty research activities, including research space, grant applications and recruiting. 

• Financial support to facilitate greater research collaboration and systems integration with the Lifespan and Care New England health systems, utilizing the new IRB system.

• Significant increases in the collections budget for the University Library to ensure faculty and students are able to access the most cutting-edge scholarship and digital resources.

 

BUILDING MOMENTUM

 

As I shared in April, our focus in these early phases of the Operational Plan is putting the necessary pieces in place to elevate Brown’s capacity for world-class research. Coming out of the budget process, I am excited that we are making real investments to get these projects off the ground. Many of these investments are foundational - and fundamental - to better enable our researchers to advance knowledge and discovery about the most significant issues facing our society, and to develop novel approaches that might not emerge elsewhere. 

 

These initial investments are just the beginning of fulfilling a priority to streamline and enhance the research process at Brown, which will yield greater impact locally, nationally and globally. And more game-changing investments are still coming. This includes investments in major capital projects, such as the state-of-the-art Integrated Life Sciences Building, which will be made possible, in part, by donor funds. When completed, the 300,000-square-foot, seven-story research facility will house scientists working on pressing health challenges. 

 

As we continue to move forward and reach new milestones and even greater research achievements, we are committed to sharing updates on our progress and regularly engaging the many campus communities that will play important roles in meeting our goals. Please reach out to [email protected] at any time with questions about our progress. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Larry Larson

Interim Provost