ARLINGTON, Texas - Five collaborative research projects involving faculty from seven colleges and schools ranging from innovations in pain management to personal security have won inaugural Interdisciplinary Research Program awards through a University of Texas at Arlington initiative aimed at advancing true interdisciplinary research and enhance the University's competitive position nationally.
President Vistasp M. Karbhari and Dr. Duane Dimos, vice president for research, launched the Interdisciplinary Research Program this spring based on the recommendations of a faculty task force focused on developing strategies and tactics to enhance interdisciplinary research across campus. Forty-eight faculty teams submitted proposals aligned with the four guiding themes of the Strategic Plan 2020: Bold Solutions | Global Impact: Health and the Human Condition, Sustainable Urban Communities, Global Environmental Impact and Data-Driven Discovery.
"UT Arlington has incredible faculty members representing the highest level of scholarship in their disciplines. Their work and that of their students is among the best in research and innovation nationally," President Karbhari said. "Our strategic plan emphasizes the criticality of collaboration across disciplines, and it was exciting to see the tremendous response from faculty to this initiative.
"To become even more competitive for limited federal and corporate research support, our best ideas and technologies must be interdisciplinary to achieve results with the highest impact possible. Dr. Dimos and I are deeply grateful to the group of faculty who developed the basis for this initiative as part of the deliberations on tactics and strategies for our Strategic Plan."
Winning proposals earn a seed grant that is intended to advance research efforts to the level that the team could compete for externally funded, competitive grants from the corporate world and agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the Department of Defense and others. The 2015 awards represent the best of early research ideas within the university, Dr. Dimos said.
"I'm elated that in the first year we received so many quality ideas," said Dimos, who joined UT Arlington in April after a 25-year career in a variety of research and management positions at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M. "Funding agencies look favorably on interdisciplinary collaboration. It's the mantra of today's research projects."
The winning proposals are:
Proposals for 2016 Interdisciplinary Research Program awards are expected to be due next spring.
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About The University of Texas at Arlington
The University of Texas at Arlington is a comprehensive research institution of more than 51,000 students in campus-based and online degree programs and is the second largest institution in The University of Texas System. The Chronicle of Higher Education ranked UT Arlington as one of the 20 fastest-growing public research universities in the nation in 2014. U.S. News & World Report ranks UT Arlington fifth in the nation for undergraduate diversity. The University is a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is ranked as a "Best for Vets" college by Military Times magazine. Visit http://www.uta.edu to learn more, and find UT Arlington rankings and recognition at http://www.uta.edu/uta/about/rankings.php .