A collaborative research pilot program for interdisciplinary research communities

Project Lead: Aaron Kline, Office of the Vice President for Research 

Funding Approved: Fiscal Year 21
Project Status: Completed  
Funded amount: $2M   

Jumpstarting Tomorrow has made significant progress in encouraging collaborative, interdisciplinary research on campus. By leveraging faculty expertise and promoting innovation across disciplines, this project helped the University of Iowa continue to advance its excellence in research and discovery.  

The OVPR Research Development Office used the P3 funds to seed interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research communities. Funding was distributed in four waves, with two rounds of large grant awards followed by two rounds of competitively awarded community feasibility awards. By funding these projects, it provided researchers with the platform to submit proposals for federal funding. In the first year of the project, a total of 21 awards were made. Research leads in year one were from five different UI colleges, with total faculty involvement from nine UI colleges.  

Round 1 awarded projects and achievements so far: 

• Addressing Health Disparities and Biases in AI and Machine Learning Tools 
  • Hosted multiple well attended community engagement events 
  • Submitted several journal articles
• Decarb 2040 – Positioning Iowa as an Energy Exporter in the Coming Era of Deep Decarbonization 
  • The Hawkeye Decarbonization Summit brought 282 registrants together with experts from Iowa, the U.S., and around the world for discussion, education, and inspiration. Topics included agricultural decarbonization, switching away from fossil natural gas, electrification, and solar energy’s future. The summit resulted in several new grant proposals, infrastructure planning, and the exploration of new academic programs at the University of Iowa.  
  • The education and research of four graduate students was partially supported by Decarb2040. 
• Iowa Initiative for Scientific Imaging and Conservation of Cultural Artifacts 
  • The project has resulted in new techniques for recovering hidden pre-modern texts in cultural artifacts. 
  • Development of a new community of interdisciplinary researchers collaborating and experimenting with various kinds of re-purposed biomedical imaging techniques on various materials, which leverages the equipment and objects we have available at Iowa. 
  • Work was featured in The New York Times, "A Hospital Visit Reveals Medieval Secrets Hidden in Books". 
• Jumpstarting a Quantum Simulation Program at the University of Iowa 
  • Developed novel semiconductor quantum dot devices
  • Developed a state-of-the-art, tabletop, ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy beamline
  • Provided pilot data for four assistant professors leading to 15 grant submissions. 
  • Participation of six graduate students and five undergraduate students on a diverse range of research projects. 
• Public Libraries for Disaster Resilience: Assessing Libraries’ Community Impacts in Times of Climate and Socio-economic Crises 
  • Completed mapping and spatial analysis of Midwestern libraries and demographics to create a Community Vulnerability index. 
  • Total of five community engagements events that were well-attended by both scholars and librarians. 
  • Awarded a $500,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services

Round 2 awarded six projects, with research leads from three different UI colleges and total faculty involvement from seven UI colleges.   

• Infection Control on Medical Implants
• Iowa Healthy Lakes Initiative: A multi-dimensional approach to measuring, informing, and solving Iowa's Harmful Algal Bloom Challenge
  • The team invited applications for awards ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 to address aspects of Iowa’s HAB challenge, from liberal arts, including fine arts, and science to engineering, employing basic and applied research approaches to characterize, understand, quantify the risks, improving prediction, and advise policy and public engagement.
• Move-ome: mapping 24-hour activity cycles in midlife to promote lifelong cognitive health and resilience
  • Project leader Michelle Voss received a grant to study how self-regulation relates to adherence to daily physical activity in middle-aged and older people.
• NEXT Stages: Live Performance with 3D Video in Shared Virtual Worlds
• Organizational Diversity Initiatives: Understanding Adoption Patterns and Impact
  • The project team administered $25,000 in grants to build new and expand existing programs of research related to creating an equitable and just society.
• Understanding the Nasal Complex as a Fundamental Portal to Human Health
  • A team member was awarded a $2 million NIH grant to study sleep disorders connected with snoring. 

Next Steps: 

While P3 funding for the Jumpstarting Tomorrow project has been completed, many of the multidisciplinary projects provided with seed funding are continuing their work. As the projects progress and start to be completed, they will start to submit research publications, complete creative works, present at conferences, and apply for grants which will ensure the sustainability of the projects. 

As of June 30, 2024, 5.9M in total funding had been awarded to eight grants from Jumpstarting Tomorrow projects. Participants in the program had also published 44 scholarly articles or creative works, completed 67 conference presentations, and involved 193 undergraduate students in research projects. 

The Jumpstarting Tomorrow team will continue to evaluate the final progress and outcomes for projects as they are completed.