Scott Powers
Newly elected chairman of the Florida Board of Governors Thomas Kuntz has declared that Florida’s state universities need to elevate their standings as research institutions.
In giving his first State of the [University] System address Thursday afternoon, shortly after being elected to succeed Morteza “Mori” Hosseini as chairman, Kuntz acknowledged there has been strong progress in two of the Board of Governors’ long-term goals: to align the state universities’ degree programs with Florida’s workplace needs, and to increase university access to students through affordability.
But Kuntz, a former SunTrust Banks executive from Orlando, expressed his personal disappointment in the state’s 12 public universities’ standings nationally as research centers. He said Florida ranks last among the nation’s 10 largest states in external funding for university-based research.
“An exemplary university system must do exemplary research,” Kuntz said during the Board of Governors meeting at Florida State University.
Florida must “elevate the research profile of our system so we can bring more research dollars to our state and playing an even bigger role in fueling Florida’s economy through discovery and innovation,” he said.
Kuntz noted that among the nation’s 10 largest states, California has 76 percent of its university research funded by federal and other external sources; Pennsylvania, 79 percent;and Ohio at 73 percent. “And we’re at 59” percent, he said.
The Board of Governors has identified four major areas of research that Kuntz described as “making sense for our economy:” health, big data, advanced manufacturing, and coastal marine sciences.
Kuntz goals for the next two years include:
- Having universities hire more faculty stars;
- Bringing big data infrastructure to the state, and;
- Expecting the University of Florida and Florida State to “continue to contribute significantly to our research profile.”
He expects year-over-year improvements that would raise their profiles as research universities, with Florida reaching the top 10 and Florida State the top 25. To do so, the schools must increase standings such as National Academy memberships, national rankings in research expenditures, patents awarded, doctoral degrees awarded annually, and the number of postdoctoral appointees.
“I would say the state of the system is good. But now it’s time to move to having that state of the system become great,” Kuntz said.
