A Note From:
IOA Director Victor Marshall
I thought I might share with you some of my hopes for the future of the Institute. The IOA has as its general mission, “To enhance the well-being of older people in North Carolina by fostering statewide collaboration in research, education, and service.” I will here focus on the research aspects of our mission, although we see research as in the service of education and service.
To accomplish this statewide mission, the IOA is committed to working on the UNC at Chapel Hill Campus with partners across the state, and on behalf of the state, nationally and internationally. Why nationally and internationally? There are several reasons. If North Carolina is to be state-of-the-art as an aging society, we need to know all we can about aging in different social and environmental contexts. Engagement in the national and international research communities is a good way to sharpen our research skills and learn about the exigencies of aging. If we are to develop research to assist with service provision and to inform public policy for an aging North Carolina, we need to put that research to the most rigorous scientific scrutiny, and that is through a peer review process that is international. This is a two-way street. The IOA’s participation in the national, CDC-funded Healthy Aging Network resonates positively at CDC in Atlanta, with our HAN partners in other universities across the country, and at home through the NC Healthy Aging Coalition and in the North Carolina Aging Services Plan. Finally, if we are to attract the best researchers to work with the Institute and its many programs, we need to provide mechanisms to assist them in plugging into the scientific community, which is an international community.
In addition to its statewide mission, the IOA has a mission on the Chapel Hill campus of the UNC System. Here we are one of several institutional players in the aging area, as there is significant research, education and service going on across the campus and through several other programs, centers, departments and schools. We work collaboratively on the UNC at Chapel Hill campus to strengthen the campus mission in aging.
Here are a few of our activities and goals for the future that are in the research area.
1. Develop new research strength in the IOA through our Research Stimulus Program. We initiated a Research Stimulus Grants Program a year ago on the Chapel Hill campus, through which we funded four research teams, two led by quite junior investigators and two by more senior investigators who are new to the aging field. One proposal has been submitted to NIH for funding; others are still in process. Several IOA Research Scientists provide individual mentoring and team mentoring in monthly meetings. The second competition, just completed, attracted 13 inquiries, which led to 7 letters of intent. We are about to fund four new research development projects in this way. This program will help to build the volume of research that is housed within the institute, and more importantly, it helps young investigators and more senior investigators who have not previously worked in the aging field to get started in aging research careers.
2. At the request of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and International Development, Dr. Tony Waldrop, in partnership with the Program on Aging, and with a committee involving investigators from several other units, we are in the process of organizing an Aging Research Retreat that we hope will bring together over 100 investigators at UNC at Chapel Hill, to share information about research that is currently underway, develop ideas about promising future research directions, and build alliances and partnerships to stimulate interdisciplinary research across the campus. The retreat will be held in the fall of 2007. Watch this newsletter for details.
3. In the past few years we have strengthened our research support capacity by establishing a Statistical Support Unit under the direction of Dr. Lloyd Edwards, Dept. of Statistics, who was appointed a Senior Research Scientist last year. We also appointed four additional Scientists, two at the Senior level. Professors Carol Giuliani (Allied Health Sciences) and Marilyn Hartman (Psychology) bring long-term aging research experience. They have submitted a grant through the IOA. Dr. Tiffany Shubert is a new (75%) appointment as a Research Scientist to assist in the healthy aging and aging and disability areas. She is participating in several research grants and will also be teaching in the School of medicine, as she develops her own research program. Tiffany was a doctoral fellow in our CPHAR program. Dr. Peter Stein, recently retired from a university position in New Jersey, has been appointed a Research Scientist and Assistant Director for Aging and Workforce. He will lead our initiatives to build a broad program of applied research and consultation in this area, building on several current research projects at the IOA. He will work as a volunteer in this capacity but will likely develop some research funding through his activities.
I am interested in meeting with anyone who would like to be affiliated with the Institute as a Research Scientist. This implies a commitment on the part of the investigator to significant engagement in IOA-based research, and a commitment by the IOA to provide support to that investigator for research development and the administration and housing of this research.
4. The IOA is the new editorial home of the Journal of Applied Gerontology. The editorship of this journal, which is the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society, passed in May from Jim Mitchell of East Carolina University (and IOA Associate Director for Intercampus Initiatives), to Malcolm Cutchin of the Department of Occupational Sciences at UNC, and a Senior Research Scientist in the IOA.
The research funding situation is very difficult at the moment, with NIH funding only a very small percentage of proposals it receives. Success rates for applicants are in the 5-10% range. Since July 1, 2006 the IOA has been awarded $1.63 million in new funding. Grant expenditures for this year total $1.72 million, up from $1.47 the previous year. We currently have seven grants in submission, for a total of $4.97 million. Three of these new submissions are from investigators who had not previously submitted proposals through the Institute.
Most of our research activities are specific to our home campus at Chapel Hill. However, we have in the past supported research elsewhere in the state. Next week, the Statewide Advisory Council will meet and, among its many tasks, it will be asked to provide advice as to how the IOA can best support research activities across the entire state.
As director of the IOA, my main goals for the next year concerning research are:
1. Develop a plan to expand research and consultation activity in the aging and work area;
2. Consolidate the Research Stimulus Grants Program;
3. Build research strength in the “Community and Aging” area;
4. Stretch our research area competencies into the areas of disability, and basic sciences such as biology;
5. Continue to develop a niche expertise area—the place to go for anything on the intersection of aging and the field of library and information science.
The IOA has an Associate Director for Research, Dr. Jennifer Craft Morgan. She is extremely active with her own research and also has responsibility for the IOA’s research development and research support activities, including the Research Stimulus Grants Program. Contact her for any of your research questions. You can learn more about our research activities on the IOA website.