Got Collaboration? New Provost Award Encourages Interdisciplinary Research

A new award has been established by Provost Timothy R. Austin to encourage research efforts across disciplines.

Provost Timothy R. Austin

Austin said the award will support “grass-roots research collaborations” with University-backed grants of up to $25,000 a year for two years for faculty groups that make a case for this seed money to position the team to develop competitive proposals for external support.

The award was inspired in part by the Chronic Pain Consortium, led by Dr. John Pollock, associate professor of biological sciences, and Dr. Jelena Janjic, assistant professor of pharmaceutics. The consortium encompasses expertise in pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, molecular imaging, neuroscience and animal behavior to tackle issues including cancer pain, the involvement of the immune system in pain and the interactions of stress and pain.

The consortium will receive the first award, Austin said. Directions about how to submit proposals for future awards, including a list of materials required and a calendar of deadlines, are available as a .pdf file under the Academic Affairs channel on DORI.

In his spring academic address to faculty and staff, Austin explained the driving forces behind this new grant award:

“Increasingly, the sheer complexity of the research challenges we face has dictated the formation of broad-based collaborative teams to address them—to the point that federal and state funding agencies either insist on interdisciplinary proposals or score them more highly than proposals for projects within a single discipline.

“Duquesne, of all institutions, should thrive in this setting. We host a wide range of programs and boast faculty expertise in many fields; at the same time, we are not so large as to foster specialization in arcane corners of sub-sub-disciplines. …As we look forward, we must find ways to continue both to exploit the many collaborative relationships that already exist between colleagues within and among our schools and to bring together those who are pursuing work in closely adjacent areas but are not even aware of potential co-investigators just upstairs or across the other side of Academic Walk.”

The grants will be supported through the provost’s office using some of the recovery of indirect costs on externally funded research.