FEATURES

1.  Ensuring that faculty, staff and students receive first-rate research support services from University administrative offices, facilities support personnel, "core facilities," etc.
2.  Encouraging and aiding University researchers in pursuing federal funding more aggressively and strategically to maximize success rates in grant applications, achieve larger awards, strengthen research programs, and develop new interdisciplinary collaborations.
3.  Developing programs in areas of existing excellence and creating new ones in areas of high opportunity.
4.  Working with Academic Affairs to ensure that recruitment of faculty complements and fosters the research mission of the University.
5.  Planning, obtaining funding for and constructing new facilities, such as the planned Life Sciences Building, that will provide state-of-the-art laboratories and instrumentation needed to attract and retain the most competitive faculty and to conduct cutting-edge research.
6.  Providing adequate financial support to attract and sustain top-notch graduate students in strategic areas. (The current stipend provided by the state is not competitive in many disciplines.)
7.  Increasing University resources to support research by controlling administrative costs, augmenting indirect cost (“overhead”) recovery and keeping cost sharing to appropriate levels.
    In a world of changing trends in federal funding opportunities, D'Elia believes that President Hitchcock has already provided strong direction by developing research thrusts that offer promise for funding and build upon the historical capabilities of the institution.  Many of the areas that the University aims to develop parallel the best areas of funding opportunity and economic development outlined by Securing America's Industrial Strength, a report recently released by the National Research Council.  Such areas include, among others, biological sciences, computer science, and materials science, which the University hopes to emphasize. Materials science develops new metal alloys, ceramics, and conductors as well as new applications for existing materials for every conceivable application. The newly created Institute for Materials Research and Applied Science, for example, is now developing new materials for computer chip fabrication.
    Shifts are now occurring regarding which agencies provide the best opportunities for support in this area. From 1993 to 1997, even though the Department of Defense cut spending on materials science/engineering significantly, National Science Foundation funding for this field increased 356 percent, and Department of Energy funding increased 275 percent.  “We need to focus much more attention on obtaining funding from these agencies with growing research budgets,” he said.
    D'Elia also remarked about the promise of biotechnology as a critical strategic element. “The University's efforts in biotechnology research have been hindered by the need for better facilities to support this work. The planned Life Sciences Building and our new facilities on our East Campus will give us what we need to be much more competitive.” He added, “the area of biotechnology is likely to provide exceptionally great opportunity for expansion of funding. More importantly, though, its promise for society is enormous in countless ways. For example, it will foster new discoveries such as pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests and biomaterials, while it also will provide the tools to grasp genetics at a fundamental level to fight inherited diseases and cancer, to understand adaptations of organisms in the environment, and to unravel evolutionary mysteries. The new science of bioinformatics will give us the ability to organize and capitalize on our new knowledge about the genomes of humans and other organisms, but this will also require us to develop our information sciences resources.”
    “As partnerships and collaborations develop with other institutions, our region will benefit tremendously: the collaboration of state agencies, RPI, Albany Medical College, and Albany College of Pharmacy will give a critical mass of regional capability in biotechnology that will be world-class,” he commented.
    D'Elia discussed national trends in research funding in several areas that he believes will provide particular opportunity for the University. In the neurosciences - biology, psychology, and public health - he expects that funding opportunities will grow.  This funding will enable scientists to understand neurological diseases, to develop new ways to understand and treat mental illnesses, to cope with the neurological needs of an increasingly geriatric society, and to make major breakthroughs in the historically difficult challenge of healing severed spinal cords. “With our capabilities in biology, psychology and public health, we are well-positioned to develop exceptional interdisciplinary programs in this area. The ramifications are astounding, the potential benefits to humankind are enormous, and the dollars needed to support research in this area are growing,” D'Elia said of National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) funding of neurological and geriatric research.
    Another area with considerable potential for funding growth and societal impact is policy research, such as is now undertaken in the Center for Technology in Government, Rockefeller College, the School of Public Health, the School of Education, and elsewhere in the University.  One of D'Elia's own areas of interest, environmental policy, is an area in which UAlbany can stand out.
    Other areas of traditionally strong federal funding for universities, like Department of Defense funding for electrical and mechanical engineering research, have seen declines. “While the engineering schools feel this most acutely, opportunities for our own departments of Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry are affected by tightened funding in DOD as well.” Since disciplines such as physics, mathematics and chemistry are essential to all other areas of science, they must be sustained and strengthened. “We need to join our voice with those of others across the nation in expressing concern to the Administration and Congress about the need to sustain support for these areas,” he said.
    In the social sciences, Albany “has done very well in a most competitive environment.  Psychology and Sociology are both highly ranked departments nationally.  NSF funding is available in these disciplines, and this University regularly obtains it,” he said. “There is also tremendous national need for research in education.  Our institutional roots are in education, and the opportunities we have to further develop our programs in this area are substantial and must be pursued vigorously.”
    As for the arts and humanities, private foundation support has become more important than ever. “These areas, unfortunately, present a funding challenge despite our superlative programs.  Political pressure to reduce funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts will not go away. We have to be inventive in securing funding,” said D'Elia. This undoubtedly will mean that nongovernmental sources will predominate. One example of this resourcefulness needed is demonstrated by the recent focus on fund raising by the Department of English.
    If the devil is in the details, then the issue of how much the University recovers from the indirect cost of research, otherwise known as “facilities and administrative costs,” is a topic of concern. The amount of money an agency pays for indirect costs - anything from electricity to providing office space for graduate students - varies widely according to the agency's policies and the type of research being conducted.  Federal agencies such as NSF and NIH have tended to be more willing to shoulder the true indirect costs of doing research, but these agencies have not provided all of the University's external funding. State agencies have unfortunately assumed that the University's state budget suffices to meet such needs and have been less willing to provide full support for facility and administrative costs, he said. “We must encourage agencies, foundations and corporations who fund our research to understand the need to support fully the costs of conducting research, and we need to focus more attention on obtaining funding from agencies that are willing to support full facility and administrative costs,” he said. “In addition, they must understand that increasing pressure for universities to provide higher levels of matching support is not sustainable.”
   “The ability to go in new directions also comes from indirect costs,” D'Elia said. “This funding helps us sustain the infrastructure for research we do now as well as for future opportunities. We need to earn the University community's confidence that our use of indirect costs will lead to a stronger institutional environment in which to conduct research. And we need the community's help in increasing the rate of recovery of indirect costs,” he said. “I will be writing more about this topic later this fall in Accent on Research, the Division of Research's newsletter.”
     D'Elia concluded the interview by remarking that the local region and community are strong partners in enabling the university to develop its research programs. “One of President Hitchcock's strong messages is that we are part of the community, more a part of the community than many inside or outside of our institution realize. Many acknowledge that the University offers a great deal to the community in the arts and humanities. Closer ties in cultural issues are a logical outgrowth of this,” D'Elia said.  “The pleasant reality is that science and research are crucial to the public good of our region. Our region is starting to realize that having strong universities is not only a cultural asset, but is also great for business - new discoveries in the field lead to new start-up businesses. Having the University in the region creates an educated workforce and jobs. The more widespread that this understanding becomes in our region, the stronger will our support be for better resources and facilities.”