Partnership Review Report

Introduction

The Council for Research was charged with reviewing the accomplishments and progress of the Partnership program. The original directive by the Faculty Senate instructed the Council for Research to use three primary criteria for selection of Partnerships: a) the significance of the Partnership’s goals and activities to he mission of the University; b) the capacity of the personnel to carry out the goals of the Partnership; c) the likelihood of obtaining external funding and achieving self-supporting status. Two secondary criteria were described by the Faculty Senate Resolution: a) the opportunities for student participation and b) the curricular and service opportunities provided through the Partnership.

The initial round of funding by the University created four Partnerships in January, 1996:

• The President’s Health Promotion Partnership
• The Partnership for the Coastal Environment
• The Public Health Partnership in Infectious Disease Control
• The Sensors and Surface Technology Partnership for Education and Research

After the University funding for the first four Partnerships expired in December 1999, three new Partnerships were formed:

• The Family Resource Partnership
• The Forensic Science Partnership
• The Partnership in Physiological Measurements and Computing

The latter three Partnerships are still receiving funding from the University until the end of 2002.

This report is organized in the following fashion. A brief description of the process used by the review committee is described in the section labeled Methodology. Then there are three sections pertaining to the primary areas of responsibility of faculty and the University, Education, Service, and Research. The next section identifies some Problem Areas found across all Partnerships, which is followed by a section detailing some Recommendations to address these areas. Finally, the report ends with a brief Conclusion. Also included, as appendices, are the responses from each Partnership to the questions posed by the review committee.

Methodology

A subcommittee to review the Partnerships was appointed by the Council for Research and was composed of J. Trubatch (ex officio), K. Markin (ex officio), and B. Allina (ex officio) from the Research Office and W. Euler, D. Joseph, J. Rossi, J. Williamson, and H. Zia from the Council of Research.

• Initially, the subcommittee invited representatives from each Partnership to meet with the review committee to informally discuss issues associated with the review. This was intended to allow input from each Partnership on how the assessment should take place.

• Two meetings were held and representatives from the Health Promotion Partnership, Sensors and Surface Technology Partnership, Family Resource Partnership, Forensic Science Partnership, and Partnership in Physiological Measurements and Computing were able to meet the committee.

• From these discussions, the review committee constructed a questionnaire (attached as Appendix A) that was submitted to each Partnership for response.

• Responses were received from all the Partnerships except the Public Health Partnership in Infectious Disease Control and are included verbatim in Appendix C.

• The committee then met to review the responses and draft this report.

Education

The level of student involvement in Partnership activities is uniformly impressive. The number of student participants ranges from 15-50 per academic year in each Partnership, with roughly equal division between undergraduate and graduate students. Each Partnership reported the creation of only a limited number of new courses to accommodate the educational goals of the Partnership. Minors were also formed from Health Promotion Partnership and Forensic Science Partnership. Thus, the Partnership mechanism has proven to be both effective and efficient for improving the interaction and mentoring between faculty and students.

Although there was little systematic tracking of student outcomes, the general feeling was that students benefited from working in a Partnership. Graduate students found good jobs or postdoctoral positions and undergraduate students found jobs or were accepted into first-rate graduate schools. Of the publications and presentations that resulted from Partnership activities, a very high percentage (> 75%) included student co-authors. Anecdotal evidence indicated that students felt that their experience with a Partnership was satisfying.

Service

All of the Partnerships have provided service to the profession and to the community. Depending upon the nature of the Partnership, this service included activities directly for the people of the local RI community (especially through Health Promotion Partnership and Family Resource Partnership) to state and local government agencies (Sensors and Surface Technology Partnership, Forensic Science Partnership, Partnership for the Coastal Environment). Some Partnerships developed links with local and national industry (Sensors and Surface Technology Partnership, Partnership in Physiological Measurements and Computing), either to help drive new products to market or help companies solve problems with existing products. Partnership in Physiological Measurements and Computing also indicated that Partnership activities were able to help recruit under-represented persons into the engineering field, a positive service for the University. Service contributions are diverse and essential components of all Partnerships.

Research

The research component of each Partnership is the most important activity and there is a high level of research activity in all of the Partnerships. The role and contribution of the Partnerships in research productivity is difficult to measure quantitatively, however. The committee looked at four items: number of publications, number of proposals submitted, number of proposals awarded, and the amount of money awarded for each of the faculty members listed as being an active member for each Partnership. The publications were taken from a database maintained by the URI Library and the other items were taken from the Research Office database. Bar graphs for the totals vs. time over the last ten years for all Partnerships are given in Appendix B. Since research awards and publications do not indicate the relationship to a Partnership activity, no attempt was made to apportion these totals into Partnership and non-Partnership categories. There also is no accounting for changes in faculty participation.

The general observations about all of these measures are that there is little change before and after Partnerships were created. There is significant fluctuation from year to year and no definitive trends are apparent. For Family Resource Partnership, Forensic Science Partnership, and Partnership in Physiological Measurements and Computing no influence from the creation from the Partnerships is expected since they are so young. Given that there also is no change for the older Partnerships, one of two conclusions may be drawn. First, it is possible that the incubation time for a Partnership to create an environment to increase research productivity and visibility exceeds five years. A second possibility is that faculty participating in Partnerships are working to the same capacity as before Partnerships, but are now focusing their activities in the Partnership rather than elsewhere.

Problem Areas

All of the Partnerships reported the same problem areas that can be summarized into three areas. First, where do the Partnerships fit into the University structure? Second, how can workload problems be resolved? Third, how do the Partnerships become self-sustaining? Each of these topics will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

The Partnerships report to the Provost, but are populated by faculty from various departments and colleges. This structure leads to conflicting responsibilities and availability of resources. This structure also leads to different faculty being treated differently with regards to their Partnership activities, depending upon the curriculum needs of a given department or college.

The most striking area where the Partnership structure affected participants was uncompensated workload. Nearly all teaching activities by faculty in Partnerships were done on an overload basis. Further, crosslisted courses also proved to be a problem: course enrollment and instruction had blurred lines in terms of who takes responsibility and who gets credit. Further, service and administrative activities within a Partnership have received no recognition at all as part of the workload. It is clear that workload assignments for faculty participating in Partnerships receive no formal, official recognition and are treated differently by different units within the University.

Finally, the biggest problem area is how the Partnerships are to become self-sustaining. All of the Partnerships interpreted this in a financial sense, but the review committee also considered that maintaining the activities of the Partnerships, independent of the money issues, was also worthwhile. Most of the research projects reported by the Partnerships were able to continue by extramural funding, but administrative, service, and educational activities need alternative sources of revenue.

From the financial perspective, the problem is that there is no direct method for a Partnership to bring in grant funds for the Partnership; all grant funding is accounted through the PIs and their respective departments/colleges. All Partnerships requested that some of the indirect costs generated by Partnership funding be returned to the Partnership.

Recommendations

The two major problem areas are workload and financial self-sustenance. Recommendations to address each of these issues are described below.

Workload

• Shared clerical help should be provided for all the Partnerships. A secretary or fiscal clerk centrally located would be available for all Partnership directors for assistance in administering the Partnership, dealing with accounting, paperwork for hiring students, etc.

• All levels of administration, including Department Chairs, Deans, and the Provost, must officially and uniformly recognize faculty participation in Partnership activities. This could be accomplished by adding Partnership activities to the Program Contribution Analysis.

Financial Self-Sustenance

• A mechanism for Partnerships to get credit for grant funding outside of Department/College lines should be created. This should be used for grants that support the entire Partnership and for grants that support research projects for individual faculty or small teams of faculty working under the Partnership structure.

• A portion of indirect costs generated by Partnership grants should be returned to the Partnership, on a percentage basis. The committee recommends a three-year phased plan where 5 % is returned to Partnerships during academic year 2002-2003, 7.5 % returned 2003-2004, and 10 % returned thereafter. These percentages would be based on grants funded through Partnerships as indicated by the Research Office Proposal Transmittal Form. None of this portion of indirect cost return should be taken from the Dean’s share.

• For any intellectual property generated by a Partnership project, some of the royalties should be returned directly to the Partnership. The Deans of Arts & Sciences and Engineering have agreed to return one-third of their share of royalties to the Sensors and Surface Technology Partnership on a currently disclosed intellectual property. It is recommended that this become the standard return for all royalty revenue generated from Partnership activities.

• The source of money for the currently funded Partnerships (Family Resource Partnership, Forensic Science Partnership, and Partnership in Physiological Measurements and Computing) is a $450,000 set aside from indirect costs. When the funding for these three Partnerships ends, this revenue stream should be used as follows:

1. One or two new Partnerships should be funded for the next three year cycle at the current level of $150,000 per year. The newly created Partnership(s) would not be eligible for the funding described in items 2, 3, and 4.

2. One-third ($50,000 or $100,000) of the remaining funds should be distributed equally amongst all active Partnerships.

3. One-third ($50,000 or $100,000) of the remaining funds should be distributed to the Partnerships on a competitive basis. Brief proposals (no more than 5 pages) could be submitted to the Council for Research for review and recommendations returned to the Provost.

4. One-third ($50,000 or $100,000) of the remaining funds should be distributed to the Partnerships on a pro-rated basis determined by the indirect cost recovery of Partnership related projects. In determining these totals, only grants that provide for indirect cost recovery would be included. Grants directly to the Partnership, to individual faculty members, or faculty teams would be included as long as they are determined to be Partnership related projects, as determined by the Research Office Proposal Transmittal Form.

Conclusion

It is the conclusion of the review committee that the Partnerships have been successful and that this model should be continued. Over 100 faculty members have participated in one or more Partnerships and have contributed in all the areas of education, service, and research. While a quantitative demonstration of increased productivity has not been found, it was uniformly felt that the Partnerships provided an increased opportunity for multidisciplinary research and collaborations across departments and colleges. This was a consistent message from all the Partnerships.

The research projects in the Partnerships included participation form undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, and faculty. Since the Partnerships operate outside of the traditional Department and College structure, both opportunities and problems were created.

Students are also integral contributors to the Partnerships. Significant numbers of both undergraduate and graduate students participated in Partnership projects and were included as co-authors on the majority of publications and presentations. Anecdotal evidence presented by the Partnerships implied that many student participants considered their work in a Partnership project one of the best experiences in their URI career.

Finally, the two biggest problems identified were concerns with workload and financial self-sustenance. Based on the responses provided, several solutions to these issues have been provided. Most importantly, participation in a Partnership must be recognized in a uniform fashion across the University and a well-defined method to provide continuing funds to Partnerships must be implemented.