Author: jennbryant

When I was a tissue engineering postdoctoral fellow, I was one of only two postdocs within a newly constructed research unit at Carolinas Medical Center (CMC), a large flagship hospital in the University of North Carolina Health system.

While I was surrounded by many wonderful colleagues and was mentored by an outstanding clinician and medical administrator, everyone with whom I interacted was an administrator, faculty member, staff member, or medical student with backgrounds in clinical or biological sciences, and they had very different career paths from my own. While the interdisciplinary experience, the opportunity to understand the end-point application of my work, and the ability to learn about the inner workings of a medical center were second to none, I often reached out to biomedical engineering faculty members at other institutions to calibrate my path forward as a soon-to-be engineering faculty member with my own research program.

While I had earned my Ph.D., I wasn’t yet an independent research scholar—or, at least, I didn’t feel like one and certainly hadn’t developed the constructs of a research identity. As a postdoc, I was no longer a student, but I was still in a mentored role. Indeed, a postdoc is very much an apprenticeship: One learns the procedures in a mentor’s lab; one learns the leadership style of the mentor (while discerning one’s own style); one learns how to take on a mentoring role; and one also learns how to be an independent researcher.

UGA, in contrast to CMC at that time, has many postdocs—about 275 and growing—but there are still those isolated pockets of one or two. And when you compare 275 with the number of faculty members at UGA, approximately 3,000, and staff members, nearly 8,000 —many of whom work in research settings or programs—the postdocs are suddenly seemingly hidden. It’s hard being a postdoc, having to worry about how to navigate the experience and find information and peers from a seemingly invisible place.

That’s why our Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) operates seamlessly with UGA’s Postdoctoral Association to support this often overlooked group of people who bring so much expertise and energy to our research enterprise. Headed by Associate Vice President Shelley Hooks, OPA facilitates hiring and onboarding of new postdocs, maintains and reports data on the postdoc community, and develops and evaluates university policy affecting postdocs.

However, the mission of OPA is much more all-encompassing. In collaboration with the Postdoctoral Association, OPA staff work hard to build a forward-thinking, supportive community that reminds our postdocs they are not alone—far from it. We want to help them connect with their peers and other potential mentors. We want them to lean into the intersectionality of a postdoc appointment—i.e., when they emerge from this role, UGA postdocs should represent an aggregation of influences that combined to produce each unique individual.

Last year OPA sponsored monthly “coffee and conversations” events designed to facilitate informal exchanges on the variety of issues postdocs face in their everyday lives, such as conducting job searches, juggling work and personal responsibilities like child care or elder care, and becoming better teachers. These informal gatherings were in addition to more formal monthly professional development events on topics like grant writing, mentoring, innovation and entrepreneurship, connecting with industry, and others. All of these activities and more are detailed on the Postdoc Portal, maintained by OPA and the Postdoc Association.

A new effort—one that’s personally exciting to me—is the Future Faculty for Inclusive Research Excellence (FFIRE) program. Established in 2023, the program is designed to provide recruitment, mentorship, and support of exceptional new postdoctoral scholars with diverse backgrounds and interests who intend to pursue academic careers.

Five FFIRE scholars, working in disciplines from engineering to molecular biology to ecology, participated in the program during 2023-24, along with 30 mentors (yes, 30!). To be an FFIRE mentor, one must apply for the opportunity and demonstrate a longstanding commitment to mentorship and a willingness to participate in FFIRE professional development programming. We are terrifically excited that interest in the program is high, and we are in the process of naming our second cohort of postdocs and mentors.

Again, the idea is to provide these budding scholars with a broad range of perspectives (and, most importantly, a network of peers and mentors) as they prepare to embark on their independent careers and define their own research programs. I’m absolutely thrilled at the potential for FFIRE to enhance, expand, and shine a light on the UGA postdoc community.

Recently, Shelley headlined a Research Live webinar in which she described the programs and initiatives created to support UGA’s postdoc community. She and Georgia Athletic Association Professor Erin Dolan also discussed creative ways PIs can fund their postdocs through such avenues as training grants, like the National Institutes of Health T32 grant that supports the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases training program, as well as other fellowship and internship programs.

If you weren’t able to attend the event live, I encourage you to watch click the link above and watch the recorded video. If you’re a UGA postdoc, it will help you learn about the community of postdoctoral scholars around you. And if you’re a faculty member considering incorporating postdocs into your research program, it’s an excellent way to get started.

Despite the very real challenges of the role, many former postdocs (myself included) have terrific memories of the meaningful time we spent “in between” our doctoral degrees and our faculty appointments. Our goal in the Office of Research is to celebrate our UGA postdocs and ensure they have the support, the tools—and the community around them—to demystify and facilitate their progress to independent careers.

Hope your summer is off to a fantastic start.

Karen J.L. Burg

Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research

Cancer, still the second-leading cause of death worldwide, is one of humanity’s oldest enemies. For many researchers, the fight against cancer is personal.

My own postdoctoral training was in the laboratories of the Chief of Surgical Oncology at Carolinas Medical Center (CMC) in Charlotte, N.C. Working in that medical center, I remember the anguished, yet determined faces of cancer patients and their loved ones. More recently, as I became part of my father’s two-decade battle with cancer, I developed additional perspective and my own determination.

For a junior scientist eager to make an impact in the world, my experience in an oncology unit was wrenching and inspiring. It was a “full on” learning opportunity in multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration and in use-inspired discovery (i.e. listening, asking open ended questions, listening again even more intently, refining my ideas rather than racing blindly after an exciting engineering solution). I felt driven to give that hope to more families affected by cancer.

My time at CMC helped spark a realization of the urgency and need for thoughtful, impactful cancer therapy and prevention approaches; it led me to develop one of the first commercialized enabling technologies in the area of personalized precision cellular oncology. My experiences as a family member encountering the ravages of cancer taught me that the patient’s perspective is vital.

For researchers at the University of Georgia, the UGA Cancer Center offers an opportunity to conduct cutting-edge, translational research in a wide variety of related oncological fields, to work with colleagues at UGA, other research universities, and medical centers, and to engage the perspective of patients.

The center’s 40-plus affiliated faculty members, hailing from two dozen departments across the university, attack cancer from three fronts: prevention, detection and diagnosis, and treatment. In fiscal year 2023, Cancer Center researchers attracted nearly $11.8 million in research funding, along with $8.6 million to date in fiscal year 2024.

In 2022, Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Pharmacy Eileen Kennedy became the center’s new director, and she began to explore and expand avenues for collaboration and marketing. Under her leadership, the Cancer Center has opened its doors to all by invigorating its campus seminar series, holding events monthly throughout the academic year, and engaging in activities like a Research Live webinar in March.

The Center also has strengthened its partnerships with the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University and the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Just last week, the UGA Cancer Center and Winship co-hosted their third recent retreat featuring student poster sessions as well as keynote addresses by prominent physicians. When I attended the joint retreat in 2022, I noted UGA and Emory graduate students excitedly talking with each other about their research, as well as faculty members discussing inter-institutional opportunities with similar excitement. In December 2023, the center also held a joint retreat at Augusta University—three UGA student researchers received poster awards at this event! In addition, over the past year the Cancer Center funded $50K in seed grants for new collaborations of cancer researchers.

These opportunities for collaboration—with Emory, with Augusta, with researchers across UGA—represent the Cancer Center’s greatest appeal for faculty. Emory has an outstanding reputation in health sciences research, bolstered by a vast health care system that provides significant clinical research opportunities to partner institutions, including members of the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance (Ga-CTSA).

Both universities also benefit from the tremendous generosity of the Stamper family. Cancer survivor Richard Stamper, a 1984 UGA graduate, and his wife Kim (BBA ’89), have made possible the joint UGA-Winship retreats that have fostered fruitful research relationships over the past three years.

UGA’s unique resources and world-class expertise in veterinary research and our membership in Ga-CTSA—not to mention the soon-to-open School of Medicine—provide ample opportunities for clinical work. The Cancer Center also is working with the Office of Global Engagement to grow international research partnerships and collaborations—the differing perspectives and background automatically afforded by global interactions are absolutely paramount to robust medical research.

Finally, cancer research is also very much on the mind of our students. Among the incoming Fall 2024 class of Integrated Life Science graduate students, 20% declared an interest in cancer biology. The center’s retreats have allowed some 80 students to showcase posters of their work, and two delivered oral presentations of their research at the UGA-Emory retreat last summer.

If you have an interest in cancer research, I urge you to connect with Cancer Center Director Eileen Kennedy at ekennedy@uga.edu. In December, the center will hold another retreat, this time on the UGA campus, with Augusta’s Georgia Cancer Center. This will be an excellent opportunity to talk with center faculty and discover research opportunities.

I also encourage you to consider the Cancer Center seed grants, which the Stampers are generously supporting for the next five years. The grants are contingent on generating new joint projects with Augusta/Emory faculty, undergirding the three institutions’ commitment and recognition of the power of collaboration.

Despite tremendous advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment that have extended and improved life for millions of cancer patients, we are still a long way from our goal. My hope is that the collaboration opportunities afforded will create for you the sparks that lead quickly to the realization that your work is so much more than an academic exercise.

Best wishes as we close out another exciting semester.

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research

One of the highlights of my Harbor Lights lab in the College of Veterinary Medicine is the bustle of interdisciplinary, vertically integrated research activities: a postdoctoral fellow working with a graduate student and an enthusiastic team of undergraduates, moving together toward a common goal. The laboratory is filled with creative energy as novice researchers learn from their more experienced colleagues, who in turn often learn new things simply from the fresh perspective their junior lab mates bring to the work. Five vastly different disciplines are represented under the unifying umbrella of the sixth discipline – veterinary medicine.

Environments like this are great examples of the university fulfilling its land-grant mission. Undergraduate students participating in experiential learning fuses together the two pillars of education and research unlike any other activity.

I view teaching and research as inseparable and simply two points on a continuum. At a research-intensive university like UGA, it’s often impossible to tease them apart. We routinely move concepts introduced in class into research discussions, just as on occasion we might bring research materials into the classroom to demonstrate key points. When postdoctoral fellows and graduate students help undergraduates perform a task or design a protocol, they are not just conducting research—they are teaching.

Indeed, the benefits to undergraduates who are included in research stretch far beyond simply teaching them the specific tasks they perform in the lab (or the field, or the studio, or wherever the creative inquiry happens). They learn to communicate and collaborate with their colleagues. They learn critical thinking skills. They learn not to be stymied by failure—which, as all of you know, happens a lot in research and innovation.

In short, they learn things that will transfer directly into the rest of their day and even into their post-college careers, whether in research or any other pursuit. The experience is life shaping.

This is a quick snapshot of why I’m such a huge supporter of UGA’s Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO). Based in the Morehead Honors College but open to any UGA undergraduate, CURO works with hundreds of students each year, pairing them with faculty mentors across the university. (CURO was also the subject of our most recent Research Live, which I highly encourage you to check out if you’re not familiar with the program.)

To be sure, CURO’s tangible benefits are many. Participating students register for courses with the “R” suffix (4960R, 4970R, 4980R) and receive experiential learning credit. CURO awards $1,000 scholarships to 500 students each year, as well as summer research fellowships. The program also awards conference participation grants that support students’ ability to travel and present their work in a professional setting. Incoming first-year students can apply for the CURO Honors Scholarship, which provides $3,000 per year and is renewable up to four years.

The highlight of the year is the annual CURO Symposium, which features 10-minute student research presentations and a truly impressive poster session. Celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year, the 2024 CURO Symposium will be held April 8-9 in the Classic Center and will feature more than 600 students from a wide variety of schools of departments.

Many of the presenting students are first-year or transfer students, and that’s another way undergraduate research can make the difference in an individual’s college career. Just think back to what brand-new students face at a large university. They may know few people. They may never have been inside a college classroom or laboratory or studio or field station. They may be away from home for the first time. It can be overwhelming.

So imagine you are a student new to UGA, and you are recruited to a research project. You’re given a simple, manageable role, one that perhaps occupies only a few hours per week. You meet people, including fellow undergrads, to whom you can turn with questions. You start to build your networking skills, develop your research identity, preview future areas of technical interest, and learn about your discipline of choice. You feel comfortable engaging in discussions with faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff members.

Most importantly, you begin to learn that success is defined not by achieving the end point you envision for every experiment, but by doing the work thoughtfully, being persistent and tenacious, being a problem solver, and embracing unexpected results. By not giving up when something goes wrong. By leaning on your colleagues and together persevering through the challenges. And by believing that some of life’s biggest lessons are learned through failure and that it is normal and OK to fail.

These are a few of the lessons I want the students in my lab to learn: If they combine sound engineering and science principles with a determined grit, the satisfaction of being a contributing member of a global research community will come.

Last year when I attended the CURO Symposium, I couldn’t help but grin. I looked at the rows upon rows of research posters, each filled to its margins with the stories of the students’ work. I saw them eagerly explaining their research to their fellow students, to faculty, to anyone who stopped to listen. I saw a giant room of bright, promising junior researchers who soon will go forth and change the world.

I left confident that our future is in great hands … and I thought, “This is what research and innovation at a land-grant university is all about.”

Best wishes for a smooth end to the semester.

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research

If you know me, you know my tagline “Innovation lies at the intersection of disciplines” and that I spend a great deal of time exploring this concept. This exploration aligns with serving as vice president for research, but for me it’s much deeper rooted. 

Innovation has always been at the core of my professional career. Yes, I’m proud of the startup that evolved to a stable company, providing a commercial conduit for my technologies, and allowed me to move an idea from the laboratory into the hands of clinicians and pharma in order to serve patients. But innovation has more fundamentally served me well in addressing daily questions, like “how can I solve this problem with limited funding and supplies?” Or “how can I transform learning into a more engaging experience for my students?” Or “how can this be accomplished in the face of opposing factors?” 

Indeed, innovation goes far beyond commercialization; as we look across the university, I see UGA students, staff, and faculty thinking about the past, present, and future, creating new ideas, solutions, works, services, etc., with social imperative. 

In the Office of Research (OoR), we are committed to providing the UGA community with tools and support to develop innovation skills that will springboard endeavors “to teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things” and realize the greatest impact.

Over the past few weeks, we have been excited to celebrate honors to some of our innovators. Provost Jack Hu and Professor Holly Sellers were elected as Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). This week we relayed that five new faculty—Elizabeth Brisbois (Engineering), David Crich (Pharmacy), Qingguo “Jack” Huang and Paul Raymer, and Ralph Tripp (VetMed)— are new NAI Senior Members. And earlier today we also announced the appointment of Professor Valentine Nzengung as UGA’s newest Regents’ Entrepreneur. 

UGA innovators and their innovations clearly are having impact.

However, we are most excited to see that innovation continues to live and grow across UGA.  In two weeks, we will celebrate and be inspired by arts and humanities innovators through the 2024 Humanities Festival. We will see innovation through the blend of poetry and music or the use of artificial intelligence to probe the stories that shape society and our cultural perspectives, or the profound influence of humanities research on documentary filmmaking.

Innovation has always been fundamental to UGA’s land grant mission, and the Office of Research is here to help scholars who want to explore and embrace unique angles to grow their ideas. 

As the university’s technology transfer office, Innovation Gateway works to ensure that UGA research discoveries reach their full potential for public benefit. UGA ranks No. 1 among U.S. universities—we have never fallen out of the Top 5—for number of commercial products translated from research.

How do we do this? Innovation Gateway helps translate research discoveries into products, companies, and transformations through partnering with industry and economic development partners. UGA’s industry partners have brought to market more than 1,150 total products based on our research. 

Innovation Gateway offers programs of support for all stages of the entrepreneurial journey. Innovation Bootcamp was established by OoR to offer tailored training for success in an entrepreneurial environment. Innovation Gateway’s National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps program teaches scholars how to create a value proposition and conduct customer discovery research; pitch training programs help inventors learn how to communicate with and—more importantly—listen to the non-technical world.

We also provide assistance to secure funding and mentors. Innovation Gateway staff can assist with proposals to the Georgia Research Alliance as well as federal funding agencies that offer innovation programs. With an extensive list of internal and external mentors across a wide variety of subjects, Innovation Gateway matches innovators with experts who can help refine goals/plans and identify resources. 

Commercialization is important work in our office; however, I will emphasize again that innovation goes far beyond this important activity. As innovation opportunities evolve, we are excited to show UGA innovators how the tools Innovation Gateway offers apply well beyond commercialization.

A good example stems from the NSF I Corps-L program and its underlying tenet, which suggested that a teaching innovation, which one would want widely distributed and adopted (at minimal to no cost), would benefit from the same analysis as a widget produced in a manufacturing environment. Kind of astounding!  

Innovation is not static— we are constantly seeking new avenues to support the UGA community; for example, we are excited to have envisioned and helped establish the Humanities Council to support innovators. 

In summary, there is a gateway to innovation at UGA that you will find within the Office of Research. If you’re excited about evolving your ideas in unexpected directions, or simply want to increase the impact of your work, please consider this your invitation to visit the Delta Innovation Hub or contact Innovation Gateway at gateway@uga.edu. Help us innovate the innovation process at UGA!

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research

Whether we’re teaching in a classroom, conducting research or creative inquiry in a laboratory, studio or field site, or engaging in a service opportunity, we want our efforts to make a difference in the world. As researchers, we all hope the intellectual, creative, and scientific merits of our work translate into positive change or impact on some level.

Increasingly, federal agencies are looking beyond simply the scientific merits of the research they fund and asking submitters to describe the “broader impacts” of a proposed project. How will it advance a societal goal ancillary to the research itself? Does it contribute to national security or the United States’ economic competitiveness? Does it help build an inclusive, STEM-capable workforce? Does it improve health and well-being? Does it help us learn from our past in order to better plan our future?

On its website, the National Science Foundation (NSF) explains the importance of broader impact statements in funding proposals and, as a public-serving organization, details the agency’s priorities for those impacts. Other agencies may refer to the concept as “societal impact” or “knowledge transfer,” but the idea is the same.

As a land- and sea-grant institution with a public service mandate, UGA’s mission to move research out of the lab and into our communities is closely aligned with the goals of broader impact statements. Just like the agencies that fund our work, we are a public institution with an obligation to share the benefits of our research with the public.

Broader impacts come in many forms. A significant broader impact might occur by fashioning a project with purposeful inclusion of diverse opinions and perspectives, with particular attention on engagement of those who are often underrepresented or absent from important conversations. Another project with broader impact might be an effort to improve education and teacher-development at one or multiple levels from K-12 and beyond.

Public engagement and communication are also forms of broader impact. Working with UGA communications staff to publicize research projects and outcomes is just one example; others include visiting local schools or other organizations to talk about research, holding public events, or submitting op-eds or other narratives to mainstream media.

UGA has a range of resources to help researchers explore avenues to broaden the impact of their work. To name a few:

• Innovation Gateway staff members can assist researchers with entrepreneurship and technology commercialization.
• Cooperative Extension agents and specialists serve all of Georgia’s 159 counties and are trusted and knowledgeable collaborators to the communities they serve, as well as to UGA. They provide a ready conduit between UGA research and innovation and the communities we seek to serve.
• Public Service & Outreach initiatives like the Archway Partnership or units such as the Carl Vinson Institute of Government can help researchers access and synthesize community relevant data and understand the policy making channels and processes.
• Programs like Young Dawgs and the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation can help researchers connect with high school students with diverse backgrounds.
• For researchers interested in K-12 student and teacher outreach, the Mary Frances Early College of Education Office of Research and Graduate Education can facilitate collaboration with school districts.

Earlier this month, Jake Maas, director of our Office for Proposal Enhancement, led a Research Live webinar about broader impacts that featured the experiences of four faculty members who have had success crafting broader impacts statements in their proposals. The event provided firsthand knowledge about what funding agencies value in such statements, how to make related activities workable within the scope of the larger project, and how to capture and communicate the broader impacts themselves.

As we begin 2024, let’s think creatively about ways in which we might translate research into societal impact. Let’s look at our project plans and ask the tough question of ourselves: “So what?” Impactful work magnifies the ultimate value of the research and almost always results in new opportunities for application and collaboration. Impactful work is fundamental to the mission of UGA and, most importantly, imperative to the world we serve.

I wish you all the best for a successful and productive spring semester!

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research

Over the last 30 years, cross-disciplinary research teams have grown in number not just at UGA but at universities around the country and the world. That’s because few, if any, real-world problems contain themselves neatly within the boundaries of our academic disciplines; they are complex. To combat and emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, we needed ideas assembled from a host of different perspectives.

The complexity of the world’s challenges and the need for highly functional teams is why we have devoted significant resources to programs that encourage team members to think BIG by visioning beyond the technical bounds of a single investigator. UGA’s Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grants and the Office of Research Teaming for Interdisciplinary Research Pre-Seed program, along with other programs overseen by our Integrative Team Initiatives group, are intended to provide funding and support for those faculty who want to collaborate in pursuit of a larger research goal.

Most importantly, guidance and assistance are provided to researchers to allow them to spend “pre-teaming” time, first learning about each other’s expertise, perspective, angst and approach to problem solving. It is this all-important ingredient for collaboration that is most often overlooked but is paramount to healthy outcomes and high impact.

Federal agencies recognize the power of interdisciplinarity and have ramped up incentivization of team science—in the form of very large research awards which can reach into the eight and even nine figures in order to support many team members and an array of organizations. Indeed, in recent years UGA has been the lead recipient or prominent partner for large team awards in flu research (two awards, in fact), plant genetics and marine science, to name a few.

Last year the National Science Foundation (NSF) launched an entire directorate premised on the idea of collaborative research and translation. The agency’s Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate was created in early 2022 to advance research and education across all fields of science and engineering; the inclusion of the word “partnership” in the directorate name underscores the priority of collaboration to TIP.

Soon after the directorate was launched, TIP announced its first major funding initiative, the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program. Innovation Engines are intended to be coalition-based projects that leverage use-inspired technology innovation, workforce development and community member collaboration to catalyze new innovation ecosystems, particularly in regions where such ecosystems are underdeveloped or non-existent. “Type I” engine development awards are funded at relatively modest levels, solely for the purpose of planning, but each project team is encouraged to apply for a Type II award, which could mean as much as a $160 million investment by the NSF toward the execution of the team’s plan.

UGA is involved in four Type I awards, devoted to agriculture, biomedicine, cybersecurity and electric mobility. The UGA-led Next Generation Agriculture project, or NextGA, pulls together an alliance of more than 30 public and private organizations, all committed to fostering the adoption of “Agriculture 4.0” technologies and practices in a 20-county region of southwest Georgia. Working closely with local community members through UGA Cooperative Extension, the project’s goal is to build a framework that will serve as a national recipe for inclusive, community-driven collaboration to facilitate “innovation in place” in the rural communities that feed the United States and the world.

My point in detailing this new NSF directorate and the exciting Innovation Engines initiative is that funding for team research projects is rapidly growing at a very high rate. The need for interdisciplinarity through team science is clear, and the opportunity is now.

Leading an interdisciplinary team is not easy; most teams start with great enthusiasm but fade away before winning significant research awards or embarking on collaborative projects, which is why UGA has invested so heavily in resources to fund the initial steps of team formation. This investment helps investigators learn the all-important skills of leading research teams whose members have a wide distribution of perspectives, experiences and goals.

Associate Vice President Larry Hornak leads the Office of Research Integrative Team Initiatives, and I encourage you to reach out to him to learn more. We recently published a Q&A interview with Dr. Hornak in which he discussed many options available for aspiring team researchers. Also, earlier this month he led a Research Live webinar that included multiple faculty members who have led or been part of successful research teams.

The world has many complex challenges. So, as you pause and reflect during the winter break, consider those challenges as well as the potential impact that your research or creative works might have by connecting with other scholars who share a common passion for problem solving. When a team of committed researchers pulls together, appreciating each other’s talent and importance to a common goal, the impact can be monumental.

I wish you all a refreshing, reflective break. See you in 2024!

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research

I want to give all of you an update on where we stand in terms of research security and UGA’s efforts to comply with recent, far-reaching federal policy changes that affect the majority of researchers on campus. I also would like to convey why research security is so important to all of us.

National Security Presidential Memorandum 33 (NSPM-33) is a directive from the president of the United States that requires all federal funding agencies to strengthen their requirements concerning the disclosure of potential conflicts of either interest (one’s personal interests that conflict with those of their employer) and/or commitment (one’s external activities that conflict with their responsibilities to an employer) that could represent a threat to U.S. security. 

Since the issuance of NSPM-33 in January 2020, other federal agencies have released related guidance. For example, the Department of Defense (DoD) soon will require all DoD-funded research projects to undergo risk-based security reviews.

Why is this happening? As the memo itself explains, “The American research culture is intentional in its strong commitment to openness. Yet maintaining that open research culture also requires being clear-eyed that certain governments seek to exploit our openness and disrupt the integrity of our research.”

A year ago, I described UGA’s plans to comply with NSPM-33 and how they dovetail with the university’s long-running efforts to improve research security. The memo directs all institutions receiving at least $50 million in federal funding to certify that they have implemented a research security program that covers four aspects:

• Cybersecurity
• Foreign travel security
• Research security training
• Export control training

The good news is that UGA has been building compliance programs in each of these areas for years, even if the programs have not yet been coordinated under the banner of a single research security program. Regarding foreign travel requirements, for example, UGA’s Accounts Payable Travel Policy requires prior approval of an international travel authority, and that travel authority includes registration of international travel with the Office of Global Engagement to provide a centralized record of travel.

Likewise, UGA launched its export control program in 2014 to abide with legislation that regulates the export of goods, software and technology that might be used for purposes harmful to the United States. Reviews for export control compliance are built into multiple Office of Research processes, such as sponsored project submission, requests for material transfer and non-disclosure agreements, international travel registrations, and visiting researcher and scholar questionnaires, and visa sponsorship.

The university has a strategic goal to increase the number of successful funding proposals to U.S. mission agencies such as the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, and Homeland Security. In 2022, we created the UGA Research Institute (UGARI) to support that goal. The aims of UGARI are to provide resources to the institution and its researchers to allow us to be better partners for mission agency research. UGARI, for example, is a conduit for the university’s relationship with the Battelle Savannah River Alliance (the five-university alliance of which UGA is a member that, led by Battelle, co-manages the Savannah River National Laboratory).

UGARI deliverables will include the provision of secure research practices that are critical for garnering mission agency funding. Through UGARI, we are contracting with Fischer & Associates, a private firm that specializes in helping universities improve their research security practices, to conduct an assessment of UGA’s capabilities for doing the various types of classified, restricted and controlled unclassified research often involved in mission agency contracts. There can be significant costs in establishing the infrastructure required for such work, and the Fischer assessment will help us chart the best path forward.

We are committed to finalizing and establishing a user-friendly research security program, and to providing the required certification to the federal government in order to continue efforts toward our research goals. 

Some of the content covered by NSPM-33 is familiar to UGA, while some is brand new to all research universities. Indeed, this summer the National Science Foundation announced a “Research on Research Security Program” to help U.S. policy makers and investigators understand the nature and scope of this field, including the four critical areas listed above.

The requirements of NSPM-33 will mean additional effort, both by research administrators and by investigators. Please know we will make every effort to streamline the process and allow you to maintain focus on your research and creative works. These regulations would not be in place if the work we do were not so critically important to our nation and world.

I look forward to working with you to develop a research security program that accommodates your needs, while safeguarding the interests of the U.S. research enterprise. 

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research

It’s fall, and that means it’s time once again to nominate our students and fellow faculty members for their exemplary research, teaching and service through UGA’s internal awards programs. It’s also a great time to consider nominating individuals for external awards. These opportunities are an excellent way to recognize and promote colleagues and mentees who are doing truly outstanding work.

In recent years, UGA’s Research Awards have grown to recognize a broader range of research and the many investigators engaged in them. We have created new awards for team science and for research communications, as well as for non-tenure-track researchers. Each of these recognizes the kinds of activity we want to promote. We want you to think BIG, leveraging UGA’s immense breadth of disciplines to realize the highest impact. We want you to work with UGA’s communications professionals to tell the world about your successes. And we want to recognize a wide range of researchers and innovators for their efforts.

UGA’s Research Awards, along with our teaching and service awards, are also important stepping stones for major national and international external awards, which not only help advance individual faculty careers but are well-deserved honors that are very important to enhance UGA’s scholarly reputation and recognition.

There are many paths to receiving external awards. One way to get started is to join professional organizations in your field and start a dialogue with your colleagues, department chairs and deans. Through these conversations, be sure to communicate to them award opportunities that become available to you and solicit their suggestions.

Award nomination dossiers are often vetted by broad review panels, including non-experts, and it’s critical the content be prepared in a rigorous—but also accessible—way. One essential and sometimes overlooked element of a successful nomination is a well-written, comprehensive and convincing nomination letter—typically provided by a dean or department head—that can be fully appreciated not just by peers but by well-informed laypeople.

Earlier this month we held a Research Live webinar to explore best practices for compiling effective nomination packages. Hosted by Associate Vice President Shelley Hooks and Assistant Director Jessica Farmer from the Office of Research Personnel and Internal Grants & Awards, the discussion also featured faculty administrators with strong histories of supporting successful faculty nominations: Nate Nibbelink (associate dean for research, Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources); Denise Spangler (dean, Mary Frances Early College of Education); and Mike Tiemeyer (joint director, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and Center for Molecular Medicine). The session was recorded, so if you weren’t able to attend, you can still watch it online.

The Nov. 1 deadline for UGA Research Award nominations to the Office of Research is fast approaching. Thank you for your efforts in providing the best possible slate of nominees. I look forward to recognizing our research honorees next spring during Honors Week. Taking time to recognize the diversity and excellence of our researchers and innovators along the entire career spectrum is imperative and exciting.

Whether a nominee or nominator, please know you are greatly appreciated—my thanks for all you do for the UGA research enterprise.

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research