Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Stewarding Excellence @ Illinois: Better systems, compliance for research funding needed

The university is moving forward on several recommendations from the Stewarding Excellence @ Illinois team, each of them focused on protecting, improving or enlarging the Urbana campus’s research footprint.

Stephen Sligar

Stephen Sligar

“I think this is something that needs to be ongoing – it’s not a one-shot thing,” said Stephen Sligar, a biochemistry professor who led the project team studying the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.

The team’s report identified organizational structure and budgetary transparency as core issues facing OVCR – and noted those issues needed to be addressed by a full-time administrator as opposed to the current interim vice chancellor, Ravi Iyer.

“It’s unrealistic to ask an interim person to make some of the overriding changes we need to make,” Sligar said. “There are a lot of challenges the university is facing and some shortcomings we have to address, but permanent leadership is going to be an important piece.”

The review team found administrative support for most of its recommendations.

“We have begun the process to form a search committee to conduct a national search for a permanent vice chancellor for research,” noted Bob Easter, interim vice president and chancellor, and Richard Wheeler, interim vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost, in their May 5 response to the report.

The administrators also found credence in the team’s call to create new campuswide systems designed to offer clearer guidance on research award and compliance processes.

Ravi Iyer

Ravi Iyer

“We are troubled by reports of researchers facing undue delays and negative repercussions from external funding agencies, including the threat of funding loss,” the administrators wrote in their response. “We must respond to complaints by our faculty and staff and move to remove barriers expeditiously, as well as to create new systems that will protect and grow our research enterprise.”

To accomplish that, the administrators suggested improvements to current electronic resources and the creation of a “comprehensive and dynamic” Web portal.

Sligar said the issues were starting to affect faculty attraction and retention.

“We are losing some very valuable and visible senior faculty because some of these things are beginning to hinder people on campus,” he said. “This will be a challenge for the new vice chancellor for research.”

The administrators said efforts were already under way to identify and address specific, needed technology upgrades. Likewise, a universitywide business process analysis conducted by Huron Consulting Group will be guided by a steering team made up of representatives from all three campuses and is expected to be completed July 7.

“Outcomes will include a determination of what systems the university needs to purchase and/or build to meet the needs of our research faculty and administrators, and it will consider best practices and creative new solutions,” the administrators wrote.

“Improved technology can help streamline compliance processes, but must be accompanied by clear and consistent guidance to researchers,” they concluded.

Other areas where the Stewarding team and administrators agreed included:

The formation of a faculty advisory committee to advise the new vice chancellor for research, which could include consolidation of other, disparate committees serving that function currently.

Improving risk assessment and compliance guidelines to more quickly identify researchers’ objectives and reduce non-controversial or non-essential contract language.

“No one wants to take on unnecessary risk,” Sligar said, “but a lot of it depends on the interpretation of the rules.”

Said the administrators in their response, “We are persuaded that with respect to grants and contracts negotiations, unacceptable delays are created by the absence of clear guidelines that outline what and when risk can be assumed.”

A review of the impact of moving the Office of Technology Management, which oversees the intellectual property-management process, into University Administration.

Providing “negotiations training” by University Counsel for campus representatives responsible for contracting.

Expanding the OVCR’s reach to include efforts to increase support for research and scholarship in units not traditionally supported by extensive external funding. To that end, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences already is working on creating a shared business office for sponsored research.

Lobbying legislators over changes in the state procurement law, which has provisions considered “counterproductive and harmful” to state and university interests.

Not all of the team’s recommendations were met with administrative enthusiasm.

Administrators disagreed with the team’s recommendation to phase out international research involvement, and to move reporting lines for institutes out of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research into the Office of the Provost.

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