UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Seeking to increase the societal impact of university research, Penn State has joined a multi-year collaborative effort led by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) to identify and promote new approaches to support faculty and researchers undertaking public impact research.
The effort, called Supporting Public Impact Research through Institutional Transformation (SPIRIT), is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. SPIRIT will work with four partner universities — Penn State; the University of California, Davis; the University of Texas at San Antonio; and Washington State University — to pilot new approaches to improve the evaluation and support for research that serves society.
“Public impact research is what we do — it’s who we are at Penn State,” said Michael Donovan, associate director of Penn State’s Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative and a co-investigator on the project. “Throughout our history, we have focused on research that improves the lives of others. It’s central to our mission and woven into the very fabric of our scholarship. This pilot project will help us build on a strong foundation of research in the service of society.”
Penn State’s SPIRIT pilot project is a four-year project that supports the University’s analysis of innovative funding mechanisms, focusing on exploring the best ways to support faculty at the institution’s 22 Commonwealth Campuses distributed throughout Pennsylvania, Donovan said.
The researchers will examine the impact of newly established Presidential Public Impact Research Award program on increased community-engaged research productivity for promotion and tenure, student trajectories and other outcomes. The awards were launched this year with significant support from Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi to engage Commonwealth Campus faculty pursuing community-engaged research in partnership with students and local community partners.
The project is a collaboration between Penn State’s Office of the President; the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost; the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research; the Susan Hirt Hagen Center for Community Outreach, Research and Evaluation; and the Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative.
The other pilot projects include providing additional training and support to promotion and tenure review committees, ongoing professional development activities for scholars, a micro-grant program and a partnership with university librarians to support faculty in documenting their impact.
“Public research universities have a rich tradition of working with their communities to tackle vexing challenges through research and community engagement, but too many barriers can still stand in the way of greater impact,” said Jessica Bennett, assistant vice president of STEM education at APLU, a membership organization that fosters a community of university leaders collectively working to advance the mission of public research universities. “We know one longstanding hurdle to greater faculty engagement in public impact research (PIR) can be a narrow focus on faculty evaluation and assessment. By working with institutions that want to broaden their assessment practices to provide greater incentives for PIR work, we’re aiming to identify and elevate additional institutional paths for enhanced public impact.”
Editor’s note: This story was adapted from an APLU release.