The University of Missouri System Board of Curators unanimously approved a resolution to a commitment of excellence in research at its meeting this week.
This allows UM System President Mun Choi and MU Chancellor Alexander Cartwright to take all appropriate and reasonable action to strengthen MU as a research University.
This begins with the launching of the Office of Research Advancement.
Chancellor Cartwright says MU has to positively change what it is doing in research.
“We have an impressive research portfolio, but we are falling behind,” Cartwright said. “Our environment must support what we are trying to do and we need to think about our institutional hiring priorities and of course increase research expenditures at a time when federal, state and other research funds are reducing.”
Cartwright wants to double research expenditures in the next five years.
MU School of Medicine Dean Patrick Delafontaine says the School of Medicine is looking to get $67.5 million in research by 2023.
To do this Delafontaine is looking towards faculty.
“Note that we have 200 faculty. This is tenured track. We need to add at least add 40 tenured track faculty that are NIH funded in order to reach the goal that the
Chancellor has set for our campus, which is to double research expenditures over the next five years,” Delafontaine said.
Other strategies to increase research expenditures are investing in existing faculties and developing partnerships with other universities, like Washington University in St. Louis.
MU has requested growth plans from every college and school at the university.
Drafts are due at the end of the month and full plans are due mid-November.