DSU receives two grants in support of its R1 goals

Delaware State University has been awarded two grants totaling more than $2.2 million related to its goal of becoming an R1 Research Institution.

DSU has received a three-year National Institutes of Health $750,000 STRONG grant to support a project entitled “Identifying Needs and Building Research Capacity at a Historically Black University.”

The STRONG (Strengthening Research Opportunity for NIH Grants) funding will support DSU’s work in developing a plan to assess the institution’s research capacity. That assessment will include facilities, information technology, faculty research support and workload, and research administration. It will also examine the business processes impacting restricted funds, the University’s priority research focus, and training.

As part of the project, a 30-member Steering Committee will be formed. The committee will use the assessment’s findings to develop an action plan designed to significantly improve institutional support to conduct high-quality biomedical research.

The co-principal investigators of the STRONG grant are DSU’s Dr. Melissa Harrington, Associate Vice President of Research; Dr. Lynda Murray-Jackson, Senior Associate Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness; and Dr. Kimberly Sudler, Associate Vice President for Academic Operations. Dr. Hakeem Lawal, the Chair of the DSU Faculty Senate’s Research Committee, will provide his expertise from a research and faculty perspective.

DSU also received a three-year, $1.48 million National Science Foundation grant that will support it as the lead institution in the NSF program “Advancing Research Capacity at HBCUs through Exploration and Innovation.”

The grant-funded project that DSU will lead is entitled “Panoramic Institutional Assessment: A Playbook for Advancing Research Capacity.” The project is designed to help HBCU leaders assess their strengths and weaknesses in the research capacity of their institutions and integrate strengthening research capacity into strategic planning to better serve their missions and goals.

The NSF grant Principal Investigator is Dr. Sudler, and Dr. Harrington is the co-PI. Dr. Brian Friel will contribute his expertise in designing surveys and assessments.

The total $3 million grant is a collaboration with fellow HBCU institutions Hampton University, Huston-Tillotson University, Tennessee State University, and Tuskegee University.

According to the Carnegie Foundation’s Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, an R1 institution is a university that has achieved the highest level of research activity, and it is a measurement of the investments made in research by the public and private sectors to support the University’s faculty and students. The Carnegie Foundation measures universities based on 10 indicators, among which are research expenditures, the number of research doctorates awarded, and the number of research staff in science and engineering.

For the NSF press release on this grant, click on the below link:

https://new.nsf.gov/news/ideas-labs-advance-research-capacity-nations-historically