University of Kentucky College of Agriculture

Goal 2

Promote Research and Creative Work to Increase the Intellectual, Social and Economic Capital of Kentucky and the World Beyond its Borders

The College’s land-grant mission encourages truly creative research endeavors that result in the discovery of new knowledge.  Further, we aspire to capitalize on the individual and collective achievement of our faculty by applying discoveries to the improvement of agriculture, industry, families, communities, and the natural environment. The College integrates discovery science and applied research and technology in teaching, technology transfer, and outreach activities to solve problems and generate economic, societal, and environmental benefits at the state and national levels.

 

Most Significant Challenges

  •  Infrastructure and facilities limit the potential for continued growth of research:
    • Increasing operating costs and accumulating deferred maintenance threatens off-campus research facilities. Our most distinguished and successful research programs have insufficient laboratory space for further expansion.
    • On-campus facilities for the environmental sciences and for Human Environmental Sciences are inadequate and will not support Top 20-caliber programs.
  • The research attainment of some units in the College remains below expectations.
  • Repeated budget cuts have capped faculty expansion and created key vacancies.

Strategies

  • Aggressively pursue targeted initiatives to increase extramural research funding from all sources, with particular emphasis on federal competitive funding.
  • Review and update the College’s “Targets of Opportunity” to identify research opportunities areas where cutting-edge science and critical mass exist to achieve national and international prominence.
  • Develop inter- and multi-disciplinary research teams, facilities, and resources within the College, across the University and with other universities (including Kentucky State and other state universities).
  • Continue to actively compile, document and communicate impacts of our research.
  • Advance planning for and articulation of resource and facility priorities and aggressively advocate for these priorities.

 

Key Indicators, by 2014 the College will have:

  1. Increased the annual total of external awards to $35M or above.
  2. Increased federal competitive grant awards from 33 to 40 percent of the College’s extramural funding portfolio.
  3. Increased at the college level the number of refereed journal publications by 3% per year.
  4. Sustained the number of patents awarded on a four-year rolling average of five per year.