Ongoing Priorities

To continue to realize the power of science, we will focus on the following efforts:

• Continuing to prime our research ecosystem so the School remains at the forefront of the most important research in public health. Under the leadership of our Vice Dean for Research, our Executive Vice Dean for Finance and Administration, and the Research Council, we will continue to prioritize 1) advocating with the University for the development of staff positions and promotion opportunities that reflect the diverse technical needs of our research environment; 2) ensuring that our hiring, compensation, and operational norms are aligned with today’s labor market, helping to ensure that we fill critical posts with top talent in a timely way; and 3) sharing best practices and tools across departments and centers, looking for opportunities to support shared services and core resources. 
   
• Increasing the number of faculty teams that reach out to the University’s Research Development Team for help in preparing and submitting grant proposals by better communicating the services available and highlighting examples of success within the School. We will also explore the feasibility of creating a satellite RDT in East Baltimore that would help faculty teams develop collaborative proposals that more specifically tap expertise outside of the STEM disciplines.  
   
•  Launching an additional call for SCIBAR proposals that builds on the success of our first SCIBAR effort, with the goal of funding at least two new initiatives within the next two years. The School’s Development Office will be charged with securing funds to maintain the availability of these awards in the future. 
   
• Investing in the four BDP clusters our School is co-leading and successfully recruiting both senior and junior faculty in each area. 
   
• Continuing to pursue new funding sources for sponsored projects in the years ahead. This includes diversifying our portfolio of funders to include international and domestic philanthropies and considering ways to develop collaborations with industry.  
   
• Leveraging the Bloomberg School’s new and expanded physical campus as an opportunity to integrate our commitment to research into our physical infrastructure. We are committed to using this project to establish modern core facilities and collaborative working spaces that facilitate collaboration between disciplines. Through this building project, planned team science, and integrative programmatic support, we will bring departments’ research activities closer together to spark more cross-disciplinary research and to maximize efficiencies. These principles will remain central to guiding design decisions for our evolving physical space in East Baltimore.