The Vice Chancellor
for Research (VCR) has policymaking and oversight responsibility
for the research mission of the Urbana-Champaign campus.
Total research expenditures for Illinois in FY07 exceeded $304 million (down from over $314 million in FY06) through more than 3000 sponsored research awards from the federal and state governments and private organizations.
A number of interdisciplinary
research and research support units report to the OVCR.
These include the Biotechnology Center, the Center for Advanced
Study, the Committee on Natural Areas, the Division of Animal
Resources, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications,
and the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological
Materials. The State surveys - State Geological Survey,
Illinois Natural History Survey, State Water Survey and
the Waste Management and Research Center are also associated
with the OVCR. Descriptions of these units can be found
at the link overview of units.
The VCR and the Provost jointly lead the program development
for a new Post Genomics Institute, recently funded by the
State of Illinois.
The OVCR administers
several programs that provide research funding at UIUC.
These include the Research Board,
the Scholars Travel Fund, and
the Critical Research Initiatives
Program. These programs have been hallmarks of research
support at UIUC, providing support for faculty in disciplines
across the campus. The Critical Research Initiatives program,
established in 1995, is an annual open campus competition
that funds multidisciplinary teams to pursue new research
directions.
The OVCR also
receives and evaluates requests from academic departments
for funds to help support faculty recruitment
and retention and proposal matching.
The OVCR is responsible for ensuring research compliance
with governmental and University requirements concerning
academic integrity in research and publication, the use
of animals in research, conflicts of commitment and interest,
the use of human subjects in research, and scientific diving
expeditions. These responsibilities include formulation
and distribution of policy in these compliance areas, outreach
education to faculty and staff in colleges an departments,
compliance reporting and review, and assessment and resolution
of case specific problems/complaints. The compliance function
for the use of animals in research is administered through
the Division of Animal Resources. The other compliance areas
are administered by staff in the OVCR working with campus
advisory committees for each area. For example, the OVCR
is home to the UIUC Institutional
Review Board, which is responsible for overseeing all
research involving human subjects on the UIUC campus. The
OVCR also administers the annual Report of Non-University
Activities, which provides a mechanism for oversight of
conflicts of commitment and interest for UIUC academic staff,
in accordance with the Policy on Conflicts of Commitment
and Interest. The Research Standards Officer is appointed
by the VCR and is responsible for observance of the Policy
and Procedures on Academic Integrity
in Research and Publication.
Within the OVCR, intellectual property, technology transfer
and academic research policy issues are handled by the Office
of Research Administration (ORA) and the Office
of Technology Management (OTM).
In order
to encourage collaborative efforts between University researchers
and industry, the University of Illinois has constructed
a Research Park in Urbana-Champaign.
The UIUC Research Park, LLC reports to the University through
the VCR.
The research park and its early-stage technology incubator
program are expected to provide new synergy for technology-based
economic development in Illinois. In addition, the incubator
will provide our faculty and students with the opportunity
to benefit from the commercialization of their research,
keeping the University of Illinois competitive with other
world-class research institutions for the very best talent.
The incubator will also be attractive to many established
technology firms as a source of new technologies complementary
to their primary markets.
