UT System Announces Additional Financial Commitments to Attract Top-Notch Faculty
With more than $2.5 billion already earmarked for science-related projects, The University of Texas System Board of Regents on Thursday, Nov. 16 authorized $25 million more to augment its system-wide, multi-billion-dollar initiative to boost competitiveness in science and technology.
The funds will be used to leverage other funding sources – such as federal and state grants and private gifts – to help recruit top-notch faculty by helping to pay for laboratory or other research facilities that are critical to their research productivity.
These new investments supplement the UT System Science and Technology Acquisition and Retention Program (STARs) – launched in 2005 – which enables campuses to recruit senior faculty with national prominence; improve the quality of new faculty and research capacity by expanding start-up packages for tenure-track faculty; and retain high-quality faculty who are entertaining offers from other research institutions or who could be lured away because of limited access to quality equipment and laboratories.
The authorization follows an unprecedented $2.56 billion investment the UT System Board of Regents pledged in August toward enhancing science, technology, engineering and health-related programs.
The allocation approved by the board includes:
$10 million from the Permanent University Fund (PUF) bond proceeds to be used to enhance institutional contributions toward recruiting top-notch faculty who would play integral roles in proposals prepared for the Emerging Technology Fund and the Texas Enterprise Fund, two valuable economic development resources for the state.
$10 million, also from PUF bond proceeds, to match funds from private gifts as part of the Regents' Research Scholars Program, a new program which seeks to recruit outstanding faculty to UT institutions.
$5 million from the Available University Fund, which would go toward recruiting world-class faculty who could take advantage of the supercomputer project known as Sun Constellation at UT Austin, which is being funded primarily through a new $59 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The supercomputer, which would be among the world's most powerful, would be the largest attached to the TeraGrid, a National Science Foundation network of high-performance computers. It will be assembled in the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the UT Austin J. J. Pickle Research Campus in North Austin.
The Competitiveness Initiative – linked to a new 10-year Strategic Plan for the UT System – is the largest single financial commitment in UT System's nearly 125 year history. Funding for the total $2.56 billion initiative includes state and federal appropriations, tuition revenue bonds, institution funds, Permanent University Fund allocations, and private funds or gifts from business, industry, foundations and individuals. Funds for recently approved tuition revenue bonds must still be appropriated by the Legislature in early 2007.
Serving the educational and health care needs of Texans for more than 125 years, the UT System is one of the nation's largest higher education systems with 15 campuses – including nine academic and six health institutions – and an annual operating budget of $10 billion (FY 2007). Student enrollment exceeded 190,000 in the 2006 academic year. The UT System confers one-third of the state's undergraduate degrees and educates three-fourths of Texas health care professionals. With more than 76,000 employees, the UT System is one of the largest employers in Texas.
Updated: 2006-12-04
