Brad Moore joined OSU as vice president for research in July     By Kevin Fitzsimons

Brad Moore: Ohio State is the right place to be

Vice president values land-grant tradition, ties to economy

If you look closely during a conversation with C. Bradley Moore, you can still see the glint of curiosity in his eyes. Most likely, it's the same curiosity that was unleashed by childhood chemistry sets when he was a boy growing up on his family's sheep farm in Pennsylvania.

Now, however, Moore's excitement grows from the challenges Ohio State's research programs face and his hopes to help make Ohio State the top public research university in the country.

Imported from the University of California, Berkeley earlier this year to become vice president for research, Moore is a self-described physical chemist who likes to work on fundamental research into how chemical bonds can be made and broken.

"I actually like simple problems that can be handled quantitatively in complete detail," Moore explains. "In those instances, you can learn everything that is possible to understand about that problem, consistent with the fundamental principles of nature."

But as research vice president, the problems he sees the University facing are anything but simple and self-contained. How well the University succeeds will depend on Ohio State gaining substantial funding from The Ohio Plan, the monetary awards to the state from lawsuits against tobacco manufacturers, and a host of other sources. Winning major grants to support national research centers at the University is another highly competitive game, as is luring top researchers from around the world and the best and brightest graduate students to Ohio State.

All of these efforts are affected by a host of influences that normally lie outside the comfortable bounds of science. Still, Moore is elated and excited at the challenge the University faces.

"Obviously, I approach problems with the bias of a physical scientist. Sometimes that helps and sometimes, it gets in the way. In those times, you have to get help from your friends in the social sciences and humanities to solve the problems," Moore said. "I learned pretty fast that if you wait until you understand everything and everything is certain, then it tends to be too late, the opportunities are gone."

He traces much of that attitude to what he learned as an administrator, rather than a scientist. Before coming to Columbus, Moore was director of the Chemical Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of chemistry at Berkeley. During his 40 years on that campus, he served as department chair and college dean and carried out research with grants from the Department of Energy, the Army, the Air Force and the National Science Foundation.

Those administrative experiences led him to an interest in national educational policy issues and strategies for improving science education, both at the K-12 and college levels. "I started thinking about what a major research university could and should be doing at the beginning of the 21st century," he said.

"I came to the conclusion that it is important to change some of the ways we operate, to add some elements to how universities function, to make it easier to take advantage of the opportunities that have opened up in the last couple of decades.

"These are the really big problems, problems that have components that lie across many different academic disciplines, problems where you need to incorporate the talents of people from many fields simultaneously. We need to help our people work together and support this kind of work at Ohio State."

Moore admits that one of the things that made Ohio State attractive to him was its long tradition as a land-grant institution and its reputation for having strong ties with agriculture, industry and business and, therefore, to the economy of society.

"Basically, I think it is important that people benefit from the new knowledge and understanding that those of us at universities develop," he said.

Moore is a staunch supporter of the University's recently unveiled Academic Plan. "It is a really good description of what a university can be doing -- should be doing -- in terms of creating and disseminating knowledge and transferring that knowledge in such a way that it is valuable both to our students and to society at large."

As vice president for research, Moore says he wants to focus on the "strategies of building an outstanding faculty, attracting outstanding graduate students and refining an infrastructure for doing research that makes OSU the best place to do research in those areas in which we choose to excel."

The Ohio Plan, which is intended to shift the state's economy from its traditional roots to one strongly linked to technology, is an effort that he sees meshing perfectly with the University's initiatives for change.

"A lot of people are working really hard to put these things together. The governor is showing real leadership in this and the hope is that we can all pull together to assemble a program that can really bring Ohio into a 21st century economy."

The future of Ohio State is inevitably linked to the state's future, he said.

"If Ohio's economy doesn't succeed, there is no way that Ohio State will become the truly great university that it could be. And likewise, I do believe that the success of the University is an essential element for the state to be successful."

As evidence, he points to similar partnerships in Texas and Georgia where the economic growth strategies of those states meshed perfectly with the goals of the major public universities there. He cites North Carolina as a good example for Ohio to follow. Moore said that before the state's renowned research center, Triangle Park, was created, the average individual personal income was only 0.8 of the national average.

"Now, North Carolinians earn 1.2 times the national average. They have really been on an accelerated curve to get to this point," Moore said, adding that voters just approved by a 74 percent margin a $3.1 billion bond issue intended to cover new construction for higher education in the state.

"There are elements of what is being done in Texas, in Georgia and North Carolina that are very applicable to Ohio."

The way Moore sees it, Ohio State's "to do" list is rapidly filling, and at the top of it is a doubling of the research support faculty receive. For the past two years, research funding has risen by at least 20 percent.

"I arrived in the middle of a period of very rapid growth in research progress. I'll be very happy if we can maintain our 20-percent growth rate," he said. "We need to double our research funding in a modest period of time if the University is to reach its larger goals -- 20 percent growth each year will enable us to do that."

"I see the job of the Office of Research as enabling faculty to realize their dreams, so they can take on the most challenging, interesting and important problems that they can identify," he said. "We'll help them raise the money and create any kind of structure -- both management structures and actual facilities -- that will make it possible for them to do that.

"I've been tremendously impressed with the capabilities, the knowledge and the depth of the people in the Office of Research and of other research leaders across the campus. It is really wonderful to find this many outstandingly capable and enthusiastic people all working on behalf of Ohio State research."

He said Ohio State needs to have "more faculty who are seen as the world's leaders in their fields, as leaders in defining new fields of research," as well as successfully winning competitions for national prizes and research awards.

Much of that success can be traced back to individual faculty, Moore said, adding that he hasn't been disappointed in the quality of the people he's met here. Nor has he been surprised by the problems we're facing.

"Let's just say that after six months here at Ohio State, I haven't had any second thoughts about choosing to come here. Brit Kirwan's leadership and vision, the exceptional team he has assembled and our Academic Plan make OSU the perfect place to be."

Moore seeks to help researchers turn the spirit of the Academic Plan into reality

Ohio State, with its faculty and resources, cooperation with government and business leaders, planning strategies and momentum, is poised to launch major new research programs, provide countless new benefits to society and become an even larger force in the Ohio economy through its research endeavors, Vice President for Research C. Bradley Moore told University Senate in a Jan. 6 address.

"The Ohio State University is a truly exciting place to be," Moore said in an address titled "The Role of Research in Our Academic Plan." "Our president is leading the nation in defining the vision and agenda for land-grant universities in the 21st century. You have all worked hard with campus leadership over the last two years to define our purpose and goals and to construct an Academic Plan for achieving them.

"Our job in the Office of Research is to help you turn the spirit of this plan into a reality and its concrete initiatives into accomplishments."

In response to an administrative call for proposals of multidisciplinary research programs -- a thrust of the Academic Plan -- Moore said colleagues have proposed more than 100 such programs for University funding consideration. He said Office of Research staff will work with a faculty advisory committee, deans and chairs, and proposal authors to further develop program plans and make funding decisions.

"With this strategy, we should be able to build the critical mass to open new areas in which we can be world leaders and, simultaneously, we can create points of strength from which to build in most of our departments," Moore said. "It is always the right time for good ideas, so please continue to submit requests for planning funds, and we will move forward on new ideas as opportunities allow."

Similarly, Moore and Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray have issued a request for proposals for possible scholars to recruit as part of the plan's call for building a world-class faculty. The offices of Academic Affairs and Research will develop a ranked list with the help of a faculty advisory committee, and authorize recruitment of specific individuals.

At the same time, Moore said, Ohio State must nurture and build its existing faculty to "ensure that The Ohio State University is the best place to do research in the areas in which we choose to be leaders. We need to be diligent in ensuring that all of our professors receive recognition and rewards comparable to those that they would receive at any other institution. É We cannot afford to have our best people stolen."

Ultimately, Moore said, he would like the University community to consider the Office of Research as an important resource, and he welcomes input on how the office can better serve its constituencies. The full text of his Senate address is on the Web at www.osu.edu/osutoday/0101/moore.html.

-- By Emily Caldwell