Fourteen teams to submit preliminary proposals for Communities of Excellence

Out of nearly 100 concepts from faculty across the university, 14 multidisciplinary teams are preparing to submit preliminary proposals on Oct. 13 for the next phase of the selection process for UB’s Communities of Excellence.

Charles Zukoski, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, praised the wide spectrum and number of concept proposals that were submitted for consideration this past June.

“These submissions represent the diversity of scholarship and the comprehensiveness of our institution,” said Zukoski. “The range of topics is truly exciting.”

The Communities of Excellence emerged from the Realizing UB 2020 plan to invest resources, build strengths and realize the UB 2020 goal of achieving academic excellence. From a selection process that began in April, the university may fund up to eight Communities of Excellence over the next five years.

In the Communities of Excellence, scholars from across the university will work in teams focused on finding solutions to large-scale societal challenges. The communities will create new means for integrating educational and scholarly processes across departments, schools and degree programs.

Communities of Excellence, Zukoski said, are an important part of the UB 2020 vision to further develop the capacity of the university to undertake multidisciplinary research, education and engagement.

“The Communities of Excellence will bring together the creative energy of UB to address areas of human, social, global concern that require thought leadership and significant attention from multiple disciplines,” he said. “The purpose is to confront challenges of such magnitude that many disciplines are called on to collaborate and co-create thoughtful and robust solutions that reach across disciplines.”

Venu Govindaraju, interim vice president for research and economic development, said the tremendous depth of faculty scholarship and expertise across the university provides fertile ground for innovation.

“Being on any one of the community teams presents an exceptional opportunity for networking, for exposure to colleagues’ groundbreaking research and for gaining new insights that result from working across disciplinary lines,” Govindaraju said.

The 14 teams will make formal presentations to a panel of reviewers Oct. 22-24. The panels will be composed of internal and external reviewers who have broad expertise in the proposed areas, said Scott Weber, senior vice provost for academic affairs who chairs the Communities of Excellence review panel.

Presentation topics include Aging and Ability; Global Health and Well Being; UB Brain Network; Building Comprehensive Science-Based Approaches to Addiction and Comorbid Conditions; Omics: Improving Health Outcomes through Analytics; Building a Medical "Tricorder" for Population Health Management: Advanced Sensors and Analytics in Emerging Health Innovations; Technologies of Identity.

Also, Improving Social and Economic Opportunities through Educational Innovations in Pre-K–16+; Sustainable Urban Transformation; Innovations in Forecasting and Observations for Resiliency in Systems of Environment and E-Health (FORESEE); Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CEIE); and Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robot Technologies (SMART) Institute.

Weber explained that the selection process for the Communities of Excellence will continue over the next months with presentations and final reviews.

After the 14 teams make their presentations to the review committee, a smaller group will be invited in November to submit full proposals, which will be due in January. Outside review of those proposals will take place in January, with an announcement in February of the teams that will be supported as Communities of Excellence.

Govindaraju said the process has been invigorated by the scholarly conversations that already are occurring across specialties.

“This entire process has acted as a catalyst to get UB researchers talking and collaborating in new ways, regardless of the final outcome,” he said. “In this way it is already a success.”

More information about the Communities of Excellence initiative is available here.