The AMC21 School of Medicine Research Retreat met on Jan. 19, 2018 with focus on “Strategic Recruitment in the SOM.”
As part of the AMC21-five-year goal to reach the top 20 in NIH funding, UAB will need to recruit a net of 80 to 84 funded faculty and retain and develop current faculty. Strategic recruitment will be vital for this.
Tika Benveniste, Ph.D., senior associate dean for Research Administration, described strategic recruitment as developing partnerships across departments, institutes, centers and schools, prioritizing research areas, increasing philanthropic funding, taking advantage of changes in the NIH funding landscape and aligning School of Medicine priorities with the UAB Health System clinical priorities.
Benveniste said monthly strategic recruitment meetings began in September 2017, to make sure coordination begins early in any recruitment process and have the dean’s office be proactive rather than reactive.
David Randall, UAB Health System senior vice president of Strategy & Business Development, presented the Health System’s workforce planning and needs assessment, showing a projected need for 50 to 60 clinical FTEs in the next five years and revealing an existing need for additional clinical FTEs.
Three vignettes of the School of Medicine’s strategic research focus in 2018 were given, as examples:
- Cancer, presented by Fran Lund, Ph.D., chair of microbiology, and Ralph Sanderson, Ph.D., co-leader of the Cancer Cell Biology Program,
- Alzheimer’s Disease, presented by Erik Roberson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UAB Alzheimer’s Disease Center, and David Standaert, M.D., Ph.D., chair of neurology.
- Outcomes Research/Health Disparities, presented by Mona Fouad, M.D., MPH, director of the UAB Minority Health & Health Disparities Research Center, and senior associate dean for Diversity & Inclusion, and Smita Bhatia, M.D., MPH, director of the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship.
Also, three areas of underlying institutional resource needs were discussed:
- Imaging Analytics, presented by Cheri Canon, M.D., F.A.C.R., chair, Department of Radiology,
- Computational and Data Sciences, presented by David Bedwell, Ph.D., chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, and
- Space and Instrumentation, presented by Victor Darley-Usmar, Ph.D., associate dean for Research.
In the afternoon, participants tackled four table topics to effectively execute strategic recruitment: 1) best practices, 2) search committees, 3) roles and responsibilities of the Dean’s Office for Recruitment, and 4) package development.