UC San Diego continues to be an extraordinarily productive and innovative research university, having recently been ranked the fourth best public university in the United States for the second consecutive year by the 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities. In FY 2020, UC San Diego received $1.45 billion in new sponsored research awards and gifts, a year when despite the global pandemic, the number of proposals for extramural funding submitted increased by 15%. The productivity of our faculty and researchers is truly remarkable.
We anticipate growth in activity and success will continue. Current budget constraints place unprecedented pressure to maintain outstanding service without adding staff on our three UC San Diego Sponsored Project Offices (SPOs) — the Office of Contract and Grant Administration (OCGA), Health Sciences Sponsored Project Pre-award Office (HSSPPO) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography Office of Contract and Grant Administration (SIO OCGA). Recent initiatives, including the implementation of Kuali Research, are important aids in this effort, fostering integration and consistency across campus.
Ensuring that our contract and grant offices continue to provide outstanding support for extramurally funded research proposals in the future is an organizational priority. Therefore, we have asked the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) to engage in an in-depth review and analysis of the three SPOs to identify opportunities for cross-SPO collaboration and integration. OSI’s analysis will include benchmarking with peer institutions from across the nation, surveys and interviews with stakeholders from across the university, and business process analysis within the SPOs. As a result of this process, OSI will help us identify how the university SPOs can further streamline to best:
- Support continued growth of our extramural funding portfolio
- Maintain and improve our customer service orientation
- Expand the expertise and career growth opportunities for our staff
- Protect our research portfolio from risk
OSI will be collecting information and data over the next six weeks and present their recommendations later in the fall.
OSI may ask you to complete a survey, participate in an interview or join a focus group discussion. We very much hope that you will take the time to participate, as faculty and staff input into this process is essential to our success in improving services and support for UC San Diego’s growing research enterprise.
