Strategic Objectives, Tasks, and Metrics

Identify and develop UNLV’s strength in selected areas and invest in research centers and infrastructure that make collaboration natural, sustainable, and seamless.

• Identifying existing and potential university-wide interdisciplinary research opportunities and centers.
• Strategically develop new, targeted master’s and doctoral programs in which future growth and faculty demand look promising. 
  • Establish rigorous customizable programming to support interdisciplinary graduate research experiences, scholarship, and credentials.
  • Expand our online offerings of a variety of graduate credentials.
  • Develop a sustainable fund to support GA positions for new graduate programs.
• Support research innovation, research excellence, and the development of UNLV’s research themes/clusters through a strategic research fund.
• Create research partnerships with universities, institutes, and organizations that complement our areas of strength.

Metrics: dollars invested; grants submitted; interdisciplinary graduate programs, faculty, enrollment, and graduates; research partnerships

Foster a campus culture in which UNLV faculty, students, and staff can maximize their research productivity.

• Invest in our strength as a comprehensive research university to ensure that research infrastructure, processes, and services support the needs of research- oriented faculty and students.
• Increase successful competitive grant applications and program-level funding resulting in externally funded research, as well as other competitive and entrepreneurial research funding opportunities and increase the number of grant-funded Graduate Assistants.
• Identify and implement processes that enable students, staff, and faculty to locate collaborators and corresponding grant opportunities.
• Invest in our faculty by expanding seed funding for faculty research, scholarship, and creative activity at both the university and academic unit level.
• Establish creative and robust mentorship programs to support and expand faculty research, scholarly, creative, and professional engagement, and do so in ways that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice on campus and in student outcomes.
• Increase the number of non-faculty research PhDs and postdoctoral scholars, including expanding support for postdoctoral scholars.
• Establish grant writing incentive programs to increase funded research activity.
• Increase the number of research professors with PI eligibility to support grant applications/funding.
• Establish innovative programs to increase our postdoc community, support graduating doctoral students, and open innovative pipelines to diversify our faculty. Increase the level of institutional support for principal investigators pursuing grants.
• Create a campus infrastructure to support graduate student well-being so that they can focus on their research, scholarship, and creative activities, including reasonably priced graduate housing, programming to support graduate student mental, emotional, and physical well-being, and financial wellness resources.

Metrics: research expenditures; non-faculty researchers and postdocs; graduate assistantships; FOA Funding, Proposals, and ROI; students participating in Grad Mentoring Programs; proposals submitted and awards received; GAs and Postdocs in awards; IRB turnaround times; faculty publications; research faculty supported by grants; publications, presentations and innovation in the arts

Invest in, promote, and expand student research, scholarly, creative, and professional opportunities to increase student engagement and align program experiences with strategic career pathways.

• Promote graduate student innovation through interdisciplinary collaboration on campus and with community partners (businesses, non-profits, governmental organizations, etc.).
• Build a campus infrastructure and community relationships to support graduate student internships and promote career alignment.
• Establish creative and robust mentorship programs to support and expand student research, scholarly, creative, and professional engagement, and do so in ways that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice on campus and in student outcomes.
• Support graduate and professional student research as integral to our access institution and R1 research university mission, including providing nationally competitive GA stipends, health insurance, and overall packages, as well as robust student support over the lifecycle.
• Provide leading edge, evidence based co-curricular professional, career, and leadership development for graduate students to enhance transferable skills and successful career outcomes.
• Increase the number of research opportunities for undergraduate students in a way that highlights the distinctiveness of a UNLV education.
• Increase impactful scholarship activities and make these activities and positive outcomes more visible, on and off campus.
• Promote creative activities and a culture of innovation that enlivens the campus community and connects to the broader community at large.

Metrics: undergraduate presentations; graduate presentations and poster presentations; graduate exhibitions, performances, and public readings; student publications; Grad Academy participation