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Innovation centers, groups selected for funding

Posted on | October 13, 2009 | 375 views |

The Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) and the Office of Research (OR) have announced the establishment of two Centers for Innovation and three Innovation Groups. The Centers for Innovation and Innovation Group programs were created by the university to encourage trans-institutional and interdisciplinary scholarship across campus.  Many outstanding proposals were submitted for this competition, addressing issues and problems of global dimension that affect the quality of the human condition.  The following proposals have been selected for funding:

Centers for Innovation:

OSU International Poverty Solutions Collaborative

Principal Investigators: Howard Goldstein, College of Education and Human Ecology; Jay Barney, Fisher College of Business

(More than 60 faculty members from 14 colleges)

Efforts to eradicate poverty have been limited by disciplinary, unidimensional approaches.  The International Poverty Solutions Collaborative recognizes the multidisciplinary nature of poverty and will work to develop and evaluate comprehensive, culturally-sensitive solutions that allow individuals, families, and communities to thrive.  The center will clarify the interrelations among economic, social, cultural, educational, health, and political factors that combine to create poverty conditions.  Four research teams will focus on promoting health and well-being, designing physical environments, developing business and economic opportunities, and building families, schools, and communities.  These teams will interact with four community laboratories, spanning urban, rural, and international settings.

Food Innovation Center:  Foods for Global Security, Safety, and Health Promotion

Principal Investigator:  Ken Lee, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

(More than 80 faculty members from 12 colleges)

Feeding the rapidly growing world population (a projected 8 billion by 2025) will require a 40% increase in the world food supply, at a time when we are wasting 40% of the current supply due to challenges in economics, safety, health, nutrition, security, technology, and food policy.  The Food Innovation Center brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers to attack the food crisis by addressing four themes:  designing foods for health, ensuring food safety, advancing biomedical nutrition in disease prevention and health promotion, and global food strategy and policy.

Innovation Groups:

Complexity in Human, Natural, and Engineered Systems

Principal Investigator: David Woods, College of Engineering

(More than 20 faculty members from 8 colleges)

Complex systems are everywhere, from anthills to ecosystems, from small towns to metropolitan regions, and from distributed robotics to air traffic control networks.  This Innovation Group will bring theorists and empirical researchers from many disciplines together to evaluate the dynamics and output of a wide array of complex systems, and to create models that can predict the behavior of these systems. This group will work to position Ohio State as a leader in the rapidly emerging field of complexity science.

OSU Center for Ethics and Human Values

Principal Investigator:  Donald Hubin, Arts and Humanities, Colleges of the Arts and Sciences

(35 faculty members from 11 colleges)

Every problem confronting us, both individually and globally, has important ethical dimensions, which are critical considerations in any proposed solutions.  The OSU Center for Ethics and Human Values encompasses researchers from across the campus whose work involves foundational or applied ethics in a forum that will create a new capacity to address emerging ethical issues in all areas of life.  In addition, the group will facilitate ethics instruction at both undergraduate and graduate levels, promoting an “ethics across the curriculum” approach to ethics education.

Computational Modeling of Global Infectious Disease Threats and Policy

Principal Investigator:  Daniel Janies, College of Medicine

(14 faculty members from 7 colleges

The emergence, reemergence, and spread of infectious diseases among humans and animals represent a complex and critical global problem. Combating the spread of infectious disease requires the collaboration of researchers in public health, medicine, biology, public policy, and social science-as well as mathematics and statistics.  This group will develop cross-disciplinary means of discovering the biological, clinical, environmental, and social causes of the spread of infectious diseases via computational modeling of pathogens and hosts, and will engage present and future scientists and policy makers in a dialogue to enhance the control of infectious diseases.

Background

Center for Innovation proposals came directly from the faculty and were required to involve at least 30 faculty members drawn from a minimum of eight colleges. The two new Centers for Innovation will receive $750,000/year for a five-year period with the expectation that each center will become self-sufficient at the end of the funding period.

Innovation Group proposals also came directly from faculty and were required to involve at least 10 faculty members drawn from a minimum of three colleges.  The three new Innovation Groups will receive $20,000/year for a three-year period.  The Innovation Groups selected have the potential to grow into Centers of Innovation.

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