Launched in 2015 with a goal to recruit 100 new faculty in several new and expanding research areas, the Global Impact Initiative, or GII, has been a resounding success. Faculty hired under GII have greatly contributed to our recent growth in research expenditures.

Phase two of the initiative, or GII 2.0, recently kicked off and will provide new positions to support research themes in the MSU 2030 Strategic Plan. Funding for this phase was approved by the MSU Board of Trustees at its June 2024 meeting.

“I want to thank President Guskiewicz and the Board of Trustees for this important investment, which positions the university to meet and exceed the goals of the MSU 2030 Strategic Plan. This renewed initiative will attract the best and brightest to MSU and complement our outstanding faculty as we strive for continued excellence,” said Doug Gage, vice president for research and innovation.

Following a similar format to the initial launch in 2015, a request for proposals was sent to all colleges asking for submissions that aligned with the strategic plan and leveraged a current research strength or an emerging opportunity. 

From a very strong response to the call for proposals, the review committee selected seven, for a total of 20 new faculty positions at various ranks. Importantly, there were new proposals from colleges that have not participated in GII previously, including the Colleges of Education and Nursing. Searches for most of the new positions will commence this fall, with six positions reserved to recruit senior faculty and director roles. 

The seven selected GII 2.0 proposals are:

• College of Education: two new positions in global education research, with one supported by the college.
• College of Engineering: two faculty hires in space electronics, to contribute to the recently created space electronics center. 
• College of Human Medicine: eight total positions in the areas of computational biology and population health. This cluster hire, four of which are being funded by the college, will support research projects at the Doug Meijer Medical Innovation Building in Grand Rapids.
• College of Natural Science: two positions in Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering . CMSE is inherently interdisciplinary, and these faculty will bridge a variety of disciplines in which computation is at the center of new discovery.
• College of Nursing: one faculty member in health services research, with emphasis on data science, health informatics and health technology. This hire will collaborate with Henry Ford Health and support new innovations in patient care.
• College of Osteopathic Medicine: one director and three faculty hires in drug discovery, across the Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, Human Medicine, Natural Science, and Veterinary Medicine. This cluster hire will work closely with the HFH+MSUHS partnership as it seeks NCI (Nation Cancer Institute Cancer Center designation. The director will be hired in year one and help guide the hires of the faculty positions in subsequent years.
• College of Social Science: one new faculty position in cybercrime and cybersecurity to expand MSU’s growing expertise in matters of national security.

In addition to these 20 recommended positions, GII has four open searches reaching their conclusion now and 15 committed positions that will commence in the next one to two years. These positions have financial commitment through partnerships with the associated colleges.

Since 2015, the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research and Innovation have worked with individual colleges and departments to conduct searches focused on key areas of innovation, such as machine learning, precision medicine, computational genomics, autonomous vehicles, advanced materials, gene-editing, advanced plant science and more. To date, 96 positions have been filled or are in process from the phase one proposals, with candidates hired from Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Los Alamos National Lab and many other top institutions. Visit the Global Impact website to learn more. 

This story originally appeared on the Office of Research and Innovation website.