NewsRelease

UNCG Awards $400,000 for Faculty Proposals in New Research Focus Areas

GREENSBORO – The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has selected nine new  research projects – with subjects ranging from barriers to developing homeland security technology to cardiovascular disease in minority women – to receive $400,000 in developmental funding.

The projects will receive funds by April 15 through UNCG’s External Proposal Development Incentive Program (EPDIP). The seed money will come from facilities and administrative costs from external grants and contracts.

The grants will help faculty researchers do the preliminary work necessary to make their proposals more competitive when they are submitted to external funding agencies. For example, they will be able to develop survey tools or collect preliminary data needed for applications, or travel to visit program directors at foundations or federal agencies.

Under the EPDIP timetable, the teams will create their draft proposals by June 30, 2004, and have finished proposals ready by June 30, 2005, to submit to national funding agencies and foundations. A total of 17 projects were submitted and external reviewers evaluated all of them. Priority was given to projects that are interdisciplinary.

“We are very happy with the projects that have come out of this program,” Provost Edward Uprichard said. “The projects showed creative approaches in their development. We asked faculty to identify multi-disciplinary research niches that build on our strengths, and we got just what we wanted.

“These funds probably represent the largest amount of research dollars that UNCG has ever committed to a single initiative. I think it shows we are serious about trying to inspire a change in how research is developed and carried out on campus.”

The projects and teams are:

• “Barriers inhibiting the development of homeland security technology,” $33,342, proposed by Dr. Albert Link of the Department of Economics, principal investigator, and Dr. Vincent Henrich, director of the Institute of Health, Science and Society.

 
• “Cardiovascular disease in minority women,” $50,000, proposed by Dr. Debra Wallace, principal investigator, Dr. Patricia Crane and Dr. Susan Appel, all of the School of Nursing.

 
• “Contributions of emotion and cognition to early social and academic competence,” $48,052, proposed by Dr. Susan Calkins, principal investigator and Dr. Mathew Paradise of the Department of Psychology; Dr. Garrett Lange and Dr. Marion O’Brien of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies.

 
• “Cultural adaptation resource planning grant,” $46,530, proposed by Dr. Lauren Haldeman of the Department of Nutrition, principal investigator; Dr. Sharon Morrison of the Department of Public Health Education; Dr. Sudha Shreeniwas of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies; Dr. Kenneth Gruber of the School of Human Environmental Sciences; and Dr. Raleigh Bailey, Director of the Center for New North Carolinians.

 
• “Culturally relevant pedagogy as an instrument to narrow the achievement gap,” $48,989, proposed by Dr. Linda Wightman, chair of the Department of Educational Research Methodology, principal investigator, Dr. Ceola Ross Baber, associate dean of the School of Education and director of the UNCG Teachers Academy, Dr. Jewell E. Cooper of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Dr. Joanne Chesley of the Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations, all of the School of Education; and Dr. Shelly Brown of the Department of Sociology.

 
• “Genetic analysis of thermoregulation and parental care in Plantago lanceolata,” $35,894, proposed by Dr. Elizabeth Lacey, principal investigator, and Dr. David Remington of the Department of Biology.

 
• “Genetics of AD/HD: Subtyping considerations,” $50,000, proposed by Dr. Arthur Anastopoulos of the Department of Psychology, principal investigator, and Dr. Malcolm Schug of the Department of Biology.

 
• "Intelligent knowledge exchange architecture for the digital economy,” $49,502, proposed by Dr. Lakshmi Iyer, principal investigator, Dr. Rahul Singh and Dr. A.F. Salam, all of the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management.

 
• "Life after death: Life histories of innocents after their release from death row,” $36,780, proposed by Dr. Saundra Westervelt of the Department of Sociology, principal investigator; Dr. Matthew Paradise of the Department of Psychology; and Dr. Kimberly Cook of the University of Southern Maine.

Officials believe the projects will contribute to UNCG’s growing research activity and bring about more interdisciplinary research. Last year, faculty set a new record for grants and contracts, with a total of $35.6 million.  Since 1989, the amount of contracts and grants has grown by approximately $2.6 million a year. Wander hopes the EPDIP incentives will help to raise the annual average to $3 million or more. One of UNCG’s goals is to be the Triad’s leading public research university – with grants and contracts totaling $50 million – by the end of the decade.

“In research today, it’s become abundantly clear that we don’t solve problems by approaching them with a narrow focus,” Wander said. “They are solved by the global approach that an interdisciplinary team of scholars provide.

“The projects will help to expand the vision for the research enterprise for our campus, which is to have ‘low fences’ between departments so that we approach a problem with all the pieces of the puzzle that we need to solve it. This is a step forward to create that kind of environment where interdisciplinary work is the accepted norm and faculty can work comfortably with it.”

Uprichard and Wander agreed that it is premature to predict patent awards or spinoff businesses coming out of the research projects. “These projects are designed to create new knowledge, and that new knowledge is where new businesses might possibly come from,” Wander said.

Nothing has changed in the University’s goal, however, to have a positive impact on economic development in Greensboro and the Triad, Uprichard said. The university is seeking ways to put more research in place so the potential for commercialization is greater. “It’s a matter of refocusing and redirecting our research enterprise,” he said. “We have ambitious goals for the university and we’re taking some measured risks. We won’t know for some time how these new research projects will turn out.”

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