Sixteen proposals have been chosen for the first $15 million round of UF’s preeminence funding after a month-long selection process.
Research into “big data” takes the lion’s share of $3.8 million, followed by neuroscience at $2.2 million and food security, safety and distribution systems at $1.45 million.
UF Provost Joe Glover said more than 40 proposals were gathered from deans around campus. A committee of distinguished professors reviewed the proposals with UF President Bernie Machen, who eventually decided on the 16 that would receive funds from preeminence.
“We wanted to invest in fields that will be important in the next 10 to 20 years,” Glover said.
At the moment, only $13.325 million of the money has a planned use for the first wave of proposals, he said. The committee hasn’t reached a conclusion on how to allocate the remainder.
He said the funds will be released to UF this Fall after he and president Machen present their plans to the Board of Governors in November, but the deans of UF’s colleges have already put their plans for the funds in motion.
Glover said he expects 75 to 100 new faculty members from preeminence funding, with the bulk of them on the tenure track. No professors have been chosen yet, but the search for new hires has already begun.
He said although the funds are going into research, the faculty brought on from new hires will bolster UF’s academics.
“We expect all the faculty we hire to be engaged in teaching as well,” he said. “We’re bringing very good researchers who will bring their expertise into the classroom.”
He said “big data” describes the massive amounts of information created with all human endeavors, ranging from scientific research into the Higgs Boson particle to large databases such as Amazon.com.
“The storage, retrieval and analysis of all these data really require new techniques,” he said.
Charlotte Jung, a 19-year-old pre-pharmacy sophomore, said she wishes a portion of the money would go to improving meal plans on campus.
“I personally didn’t buy a meal plan last year or this year because the food was below standards of what a human should be putting in their body,” Jung said.
She said the liberal arts colleges should also receive more funding, as their programs aren’t paid as much attention as majors such as engineering.
Nathan Miles, a 21-year-old physics, math and astronomy senior, said he likes that the majority of the money is going into research because if it gives back new technologies, the university could easily make back its money.
A version of this story ran on page 3 on 10/14/2013 under the headline "Proposals chosen for first $15M in preeminence funding"
