March 1, 2016

A Culture of Partnership

When I joined the Office of Research in 2005, I never imagined the changes we would see in research administration. Our grant awards were $996M and the regulatory environment was much simpler. The service and system needs were a fraction of what they are today. Some of the early changes we made were to set up the Human Subjects Division as its own entity, enhance the System to Administrator Grants Electronically (SAGE), and focus on adopting a collaborative service model.

Today, our grant awards have grown to an astounding $1.3B in FY15. The needs and complexity of research administration and federal requirements have also grown. As partners in the research enterprise with all academic units, we are investing in infrastructure and systems, including the development of the Researcher Portal, a one-stop, web-based solution to a broad range of research administration tasks.

The Office of Research has invested in the future by enabling research advances that will sustain UW’s reputation and competitiveness as a research leader. We have focused on building a culture of partnership with our academic units by gathering feedback, studying federal trends and forecasts, and updating our systems and tools to support and enable their work and streamline administrative processes. In addition, we have partnered with our Federal Relations Office to lobby for broad bipartisan support for research funding, and this year have seen important new gains in this direction.

President Cauce, in her 2015 welcome message to campus, stated that a key goal for the university is to drive innovation here and around the globe. By supporting research collaboration and the research community, the Office of Research is a partner in that important goal. We will continue to work with our researchers on increasing competitiveness and meeting upcoming challenges.