Academic and Research Excellence Update
March 6, 2024

Dear colleagues,

In our persistent pursuit of excellence in academics and research at Purdue, we share these updates to bring you a variety of new tools, services and initiatives to support your work. In this update, you will find a set of new artificial intelligence (AI) resources recently acquired or piloted at Purdue. We are making these innovative technologies available to enhance your research and academic experience. In the coming weeks and months, we will introduce more AI tools.

We look forward to hearing your feedback and experiences.

Thanks,

Karen Plaut, Executive Vice President for Research
Chris Ruhl, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Patrick Wolfe, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity

Notable Faculty Achievements

1. Discretionary funds for new awards of $5 million or more. Sponsored Program Services (SPS) has announced two new recipients of this recognition program, which awards $50,000 in discretionary funds to principal investigators of new, multi-year research awards of $5 million or more. The first two awardees of 2024 are: Kerrie Douglas, (engineering education), who received a grant of $7.5 million from the Applied Research Institute, U.S. Dept. of Defense; and Dongyan Xu, (computer science), who was awarded a $6.5 million grant from the Air Force Research Lab. Full program details along with a list of earlier recipients are available at the Office of Research website. Congratulations!

2. Purdue faculty authors. The number of books authored by Purdue faculty members continues to increase. In the first two months of the year, nine new books hit the shelves. The Faculty Recognition Office maintains a list at Purdue-authored books (source: Academic Analytics). We congratulate all our Purdue authors!

New AI Tools for Academics and Research

3. Scite.ai research tool. The Office of Research and Purdue Libraries have recently acquired rights to scite.ai, an innovative research tool for faculty, staff, and students. Scite.ai is an AI platform for discovering and evaluating scientific articles. It allows users to see how a publication has been cited and to explore literature quickly and effectively. The Purdue Libraries team is developing a user guide and will offer workshops on scite.ai later this semester. More information about this tool and the workshops will be shared in the coming weeks.

4. Introduction of iThenticate 2.0. Purdue University has been chosen as one of the pioneering institutions transitioning from iThenticate 1.0 to iThenticate 2.0, which introduces several enhancements notably the integration of AI detection. This plagiarism detection tool is used by researchers, academics and publishers worldwide, including federal agencies such as the NSF. This new version will be rolled out at Purdue during the week of spring break, March 12-16. A video overview of this new software is available at: Watch iThenticate 2.0 Overview. For more information on Purdue’s rollout, contact Jamie Mohler, jlmohler@purdue.edu.

5. LegalSifter Pilot. The contracting office within Sponsored Program Services (SPS) recently piloted the LegalSifter software platform to evaluate its potential to assist contract analysts in the review of contracts. Specifically, this pilot focused on the software’s potential use for speeding the review of nondisclosure agreements (NDA) while maintaining quality. This month-long pilot has concluded, and SPS is assessing its findings and experiences to determine next steps. The Office of Research has also done a deep dive into the NDA process to remove or alter language in NDAs that creates bottlenecks during the review process.

6. Rohan. Purdue will soon launch another AI tool, Rohan, to assist with proposal writing. Rohan is based on domain-aware generative AI. Domain-awareness is created by users uploading and managing access to relevant products (e.g., past proposals) that create the basis for generating new materials. Rohan reduces the time needed to find the most relevant material and manage access to key information. Its goal is to increase productivity and quality in the preparation of research proposals. For more details, contact Dan Delaurentis, ddelaure@purdue.edu.

Initiatives Supporting Faculty and Staff

7. One Less Signature initiative. A new effort has been launched to remove unnecessary reviews and signatures across various administrative processes and forms at Purdue. The goal is to create greater efficiencies for faculty and staff. One example of an early win is the removal of the ‘two signature requirement’ on the R&R variance approval process, and another involves implementation of Purdue’s new electronic research administration system (PERA). In preparation for PERA’s rollout, the Sponsored Program Services and Finance teams are actively evaluating other efficiency opportunities involving pre-award proposal routing and post award prior approval workflows. This consists of determining the appropriate level of involvement by principal investigators, department heads, deans or the business office in these processes. Faculty and staff are encouraged to make further suggestions for process improvements by emailing finprocess@purdue.edu.

8. Open-access publishing partnerships. In partnership with the Big Ten Academic Alliance, Purdue has entered into agreements with several major academic publishers. These agreements include an option for open-access publishing at no cost to authors (i.e., no article-processing charges) and without incurring embargoes. More details about each publishing partnership are available in this guide. Meanwhile, Purdue continues to provide support and funding to any Purdue West Lafayette faculty member, researcher, post-doc, staff member or graduate student engaged in open-access publishing. Details are at the Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund website.

9. Purdue Research Blog. To provide additional opportunities to publicly highlight research at Purdue, Research Communications will soon launch a pilot blog program. The Purdue Research Blog will initially contain posts written by Purdue researchers affiliated with institutes and centers at Discovery Park District. Faculty with work published in high-impact journals will be encouraged to leverage the Purdue Research Blog to highlight their innovative approaches and findings. To participate, interested faculty will complete a brief online survey about their work. Details about this new tool will be shared soon in Purdue Today and Dimensions of Discovery. For more information, contact Mary Martialay, mmartial@purdue.edu.

10. Purdue Faculty Concierge. The Office of Research provides this concierge service to assist faculty with questions or concerns related to their work. The goal is to connect researchers with resources to overcome administrative challenges as efficiently and effectively as possible. Since its 2023 launch, this service has helped with requests ranging from administrative and legal issues to funding opportunities and communications needs. Faculty seeking help are encouraged to visit the Purdue Faculty Concierge webpage.

11. Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). ORCID is a unique identifier assigned to a researcher that aids that person in managing a ‘researcher profile’ and to easily identify that researcher’s work. ORCID will become a requirement of most federal funding agencies and will be utilized by PERA, Purdue’s new electronic research administration platform. ORCID has the potential to connect a researcher’s work with other systems including author profiles in Scopus and Web of Science. Purdue researchers who need to create their own ORCID can do so at the Purdue Libraries website, ORCID at Purdue. Researchers should check that their affiliations are correctly registered through Purdue Libraries so that ORCID can automatically populate databases currently used at the university. For more information, contact Kevin Wiggins, kpwiggin@purdue.edu.

12. Faculty Enhanced Research Appointment Program. Purdue leadership is pleased to announce the continuation of the Faculty Enhanced Research Appointment Program (FERAP) for the 2024-25 academic year. Currently, 41 faculty are participating and will be eligible to continue this summer. In addition to tenured and tenure-track faculty, the program will be expanded to include clinical faculty who meet the eligibility criteria. Another change will allow individuals subject to salary caps (from NIH or other agencies) to apply, if eligible, for the FERAP program. Specific guidelines for participation will be released soon.

13. Faculty Recognition Office (FRO). The Office of the Provost has appointed John Grundy to serve as director of the Faculty Recognition Office. The office continues to increase faculty member nominations for prestigious recognitions related to research, teaching, service and engagement. Faculty members who wish to explore recognition opportunities for themselves or colleagues are encouraged to contact the FRO. In March, the office will also begin distributing previously unavailable customized recognition-opportunity information to all campus units.

Funding Opportunities

14. Purdue Research Bridge Program. Applications continue to be accepted for this program, which helps cover short-term funding gaps by maintaining research programs at essential minimum levels. The goal is to increase the likelihood of external funding renewals. It requires a 1:1 match from the faculty member's home department and school or college, and faculty must be actively pursuing external funding. Details are available here.

15. Weekly funding email. Each week the Office of Research distributes a list of new grant opportunities that includes a summary of funding opportunities and limited submissions. If you are not currently receiving this email, you can subscribe at the Office of Research Weekly E-mail.