May 7, 2009
New vice president strives to build on Purdue’s research strength
 |
For Richard Buckius, the University's new vice president for research, the move to Purdue brought a mix of the old and the new.
Buckius' 33-year career at the University of Illinois and his background in mechanical engineering made Purdue and the Midwest familiar territory. But Buckius still needed to learn about the processes, people and scope of Purdue upon officially coming to the University in September 2008.
"Purdue is a great university and it's turning out to be much better than I originally thought," Buckius said. "I was aware of only a fraction of Purdue's research activities when I arrived, and have since been able to learn about a lot of quality areas that reach beyond my engineering domain encompassing all of Purdue. The University has great people. They're tremendous scholars, they like what they do and they want to make Purdue a better place."
At the University of Illinois, Buckius was professor of mechanical engineering, head of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from 1998 to 2004, the Richard W. Kritzer Professor from 1992 to 1997 and associate vice chancellor for research from 1988 to 1991.
Buckius took leave from the University of Illinois in 2004 to work with the National Science Foundation, first as director of the NSF's Division of Chemical and Transport Systems and later as assistant director of NSF's Directorate for Engineering.
"After directing engineering at NSF, it seemed like a natural transition to come to an institution that was obviously of high quality but also had a strong engineering and science emphasis," he said.
His first six months on the job have been dedicated to studying the University's organization, processes and people.
"The whole goal at NSF is to figure out how to enhance the impact of scholars, and the same is true at Purdue, in that we are here for our faculty and our students," he said. "You have to figure out what drives researchers, and then you need to find out how to improve the research environment and move it in a direction that adds value to everyone involved."
One way includes expanding on the pre-award process already in effect. At Discovery Park, faculty preparing to submit large multidisciplinary proposals receive preproposal assistance such as proposal coordination, meeting facilitation; and writing and editing.
The pre-award model is now being tested in the College of Engineering to see if the concept could be used university-wide.
"At Discovery Park this assistance is provided for large proposals, large groups of people and large interdisciplinary programs," Buckius said. "When you move to the college or school level, a single investigator writing a proposal may have less need for a lot of infrastructure, but could still use some pre-award assistance in trying to coordinate an individual program. So far, we've received a positive response."
Buckius also has focused on positioning Purdue to benefit from the funding opportunities made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which contains extensive funding for science and engineering research and education. He said the stimulus funding is a dynamic situation that requires daily monitoring to ensure Purdue is ready to respond to calls for proposals.
"If you read through all the areas within the Act, there are at least five areas that the federal government will invest in: life and health sciences; energy, climate change and the environment; security; information technology; and STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] education," he said. "Purdue couldn't be better situated because we are strong in every single one of these areas."
Buckius stressed, however, that Purdue is paying close attention to other research areas as well.
"This is a university with a broad range of scholarly talent," he said. "We need to ensure that we are cultivating and enhancing many other groups, because if we can improve and lead in more areas, Purdue will be better in the long-run. Our role is to make sure that all researchers are as productive as they can be."
Bringing researchers together for interdisciplinary projects is also a goal for Buckius. He said there is an increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary teams, noting that nearly half of the total NSF-sponsored grants nationwide were awarded to teams of investigators in fiscal 2007.
"We'll always need disciplinary strength," Buckius said. "The lone scholar doing breakthrough work is vital to Purdue's future, but we also need to make sure we're on track to meet the trends that are pushing for answers to broad societal problems. We've seen the number of joint appointments at Purdue almost double over the past five or six years, and these appointments are in some way a reflection of interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary activity.
"Promoting research in all areas at Purdue contributes to the University's overall goal of being a leader that others turn to for knowledge. We want to generate knowledge and make discoveries that move people to follow Purdue. People will want to know what we're doing, and they will want to be involved. If we can accomplish this, then we can meet any future objectives."