Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 66.56
Liaison Suchi Daniels
Submission Date Jan. 28, 2011
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.0

University of South Florida (Tampa)
ER-19: Interdisciplinary Research in Tenure and Promotion

Status Score Responsible Party
-- 0.00 / 2.00 Christian Wells
Director
Office of Sustainability

This credit was marked as Not Pursuing so Reporting Fields will not be displayed.

While interdisciplinary research is currently not featured in USF's tenure and promotion criteria, USF maintains a strong commitment to supporting and advancing interdisciplinary research. This commitment is demonstrated in the recent construction of the Interdisciplinary Research Building and the new Interdisciplinary Science Teaching and Research Building, as well as many faculty and student funded award opportunities that promote interdisciplinary research.

Interdisciplinary, trans‐disciplinary, and multi‐disciplinary research are highly valued across all departments and colleges. A recent task-force evaluating integrated interdisciplinary inquiry at USF produced the following definition of interdisciplinary research to be used in the development of future policies at USF: Interdisciplinary research is a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or field of research practice (http://www.acad.usf.edu/Task-Force/III/docs/III-Task-Force-Report.pdf).

Incentives for interdisciplinary research can be found across the university at all levels. For example, in the fall of 2006, the University of South Florida Interdisciplinary Initiative on Sustainable Communities was funded as part of a larger, $13 million university investment in advancing research and graduate education. The goal of the Initiative is to support interdisciplinary graduate student education and faculty research in the area of sustainable communities. One million dollars was allocated specifically for the Interdisciplinary Initiative on Sustainable Communities. Funds were divided between offering faculty seed-grants, developing an interdisciplinary graduate field study, hiring new faculty, and hosting an international symposium on sustainable communities (http://iisc.cas.usf.edu/).

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.