The Board of Regents approved the expenditure of Library, Equipment, Repair and Rehabilitation (LERR) funding to help attract and retain the best qualified faculty at our institutions. LERR funds can only be used for capital expenditures. Faculty salaries cannot be paid with LERR funds.
Three related goals form the pillars of this program. The first goal of this program was focused on retaining high-quality faculty who had offers from other research institutions or had the potential to leave because of limited access to quality equipment and/or laboratories. All the nominees were rated by a panel of scientists, which included members of national academies.
A second goal was to recruit senior faculty who had “star” status — or the potential to become a star. These were established faculty members at institutions such as Carnegie Mellon, California Institute of Technology, Stanford and the like. These nominations were reviewed and ranked by a national panel of scientists.
The third goal was to improve the quality of new faculty and research capacity of our academic institutions by augmenting the start-up packages for tenure-track assistant professors. These non-competitive block grants were supervised by the academic officers at each institution.
The FY 2007 STARS program will consist of two elements:
(1) Non-competitive Block Grants. A total of $10 million will be available to eligible institutions, with a focus on recruiting extremely high-potential junior faculty to strengthen the current and emerging areas of distinction;
(2) Competitive Grants. A total of up to $20 million will be available for institutions to request funding focused on recruiting top-caliber senior faculty.
Principles for allocating STARS funding:
- The allocation of STARS funds will focus on high-caliber junior and senior faculty, where the resources required for recruitment or retention are above and beyond the normal amount that would be available through routine institutional funding sources.
- The academic institutions will be expected to align and justify their requests with the areas of current and emerging strength and distinction that have been identified through campus strategic plans, UT System strategic planning, compacts and accountability processes. This program should be used to further strengthen those high-priority areas.
- The highest priorities for STARS funds should be
- recruiting star-level faculty members from other institutions, where start-up funding typically exceeds $1 million; although in compelling circumstances, amounts up to $500,000 could be allocated for special cases of retaining star-faculty members, and
- recruiting star-quality junior faculty members in key science and technology areas (e.g., medicine, nanotechnology, energy, biotechnology and information sciences), where start-up costs are unusually high (typically more than $500,000).
- Recruitment opportunities, when conducted in a nationally competitive environment, occur rapidly. To be effective, decisions regarding STARS requests sometimes must occur within a matter of days.
Criteria for the Non-Competitive STARS Block Grants
- The Regents of the University of Texas have approved $10 million of LERR funds to purchase equipment and renovate facilities required as part of block grants to recruit outstanding junior faculty in the academic institutions.
- This program should be used to further strengthen those areas. This program will be targeted to hiring high-caliber new junior faculty who will add significantly to building an area of national distinction.
- The allocations will be made according to the percentage of the individual institution’s most recently reported annual research expenditures, and the average number of new hires over the last three academic years.
Criteria for the STARS Competitive Program
- UT System regents have authorized $20 million of LERR funds to purchase equipment and renovatefacilities to help recruitparticularly outstanding faculty in the academic institutions. These fundsare meant to supplement institutional resources for the purpose of recruiting the very best faculty. Priority will be given to recruitingindividuals with national reputations and who are promising candidates for selection to national honorific societies, such as the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, among others, or those who have been already elected to these organizations.
- The highest priorities for STARS funds should be:
- Recruiting star-level faculty members from other institutions where start-up funding exceeds $1 million;
- Recruiting junior star-level faculty members that have the potential to be stars and where funding typically exceeds $500,000 .
- Factors which will be considered for the use of these funds include:
- Extent to which the recruitment will provide outstanding scientific leadership in an area of significant strength to the individual institution, e.g., the addition of a high-quality research program in an underdeveloped area within the institution, or a substantial enhancement of an existing program.
- The extent to which recruitment provides important research leadership in a priority area for the UT System and/or the state of Texas, e.g. research in underdeveloped aspects of science, engineering or technology, or for moving to a higher level in an established program.
- The extent to which the recruitment would introduce a researcher into high-quality collaborative activities involving interactions between health science campuses and academic campuses, or among multiple campuses.
- The extent to which the recruitment will contribute to scientific development in areas bridging multiple disciplines, enhance translation of research from bench to bedside, or provide scientific or technological skills supportive of a number of other investigators and/or programs.
- Successful nominees will have a firm institutional commitment that amounts to not less than 10 percent of the amount awarded by System. Such commitment can include salary support and any other part of the recruiting package such as technicians, graduate students, equipment or other essential needs of the investigator.
- Individuals nominated for these funds should show evidence of accomplishment in research with demonstrated capacity for nationally competitive extramural research support and graduate student training. There should be clear justification for additional equipment and renovation needs from the STARS Program for amounts up to $1 million, the maximum for recruiting new faculty. The maximum for recruiting assistant-professor level faculty is $500,000. Some faculty recruitments may require substantially more than these amounts, and in such cases the institutions would be expected to provide a larger amount of support for the recruitment.
- Requests for funding will be reviewed by members of a scientific Advisory Board appointed by the executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. Proposals will be considered at anytime in both hard copy and electronic format. Since successful recruitment and/or retention would require prompt decisions with regard to the recruiting package, the EVC will make timely commitments of these funds, based on the advisory consultants’ advice, until all funds have been allocated and expended.
STARS Application Process for Competitive Awards
(1) Institutions must use the required cover sheet (available through the System Office of Academic Affairs) to submit requests for STARS funding. Approval by the institution’s president or designee is required. A resume or CV must be attached to all proposals.
(2) A six-person review committee will be appointed by the executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, consisting of high-level academics (all national academy members) from within the UT System. The committee will select its own chair and be staffed by the associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. The committee will review all requests and set a goal of approving or denying each request within one week. The group will handle these matters mostly via email, with a conference call in close cases. The advantage of such a committee is consistency, speed, high standards and credibility, which are crucial in recruiting and retention. To avoid conflicts of interest, a committee member will, by rule, abstain from voting on anyone from his/her institution.
(3) The System will establish a process to track and report results to heighten awareness and to place particular emphasis on promoting diversity in this program.
(4) With each award, the UT System will stipulate the indicators of progress and success for this funding, and will expect annual reports on this progress.
This project is headed by Pedro Reyes, Ph.D.
