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5X����’s Division of Research and Economic Development recently hosted its quarterly Town Hall and Kent State Today was in attendance as the division offered a bright prediction for the future of the university’s R1 status as a top research university.

Doug Delahanty, Ph.D., vice president for research and economic development, said he expects Kent State will once again receive R1 status when rankings from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education are released in early 2025.

“We have met that R1 criteria for 2025,” he said.

The criteria to renew R1 status include spending at least $50 million on research and development in a year and awarding at least 70 research/scholarship doctorates in a year. During the 2023 fiscal year, Kent State expended nearly $59 million and conferred 165 doctoral degrees, exceeding the R1 designation criteria for 2025.

The 2025 ranking will be based on research activities for the fiscal year 2023 and will be issued for three years. The next ranking, released in 2028, will be based on a rolling average of research activity covering the years 2024-26.

In February 2022, Kent State first reached a major research milestone when it was elevated to an “R1” classification by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. R1 (or very high research) is the highest research ranking that Carnegie designates, putting Kent State into a category of the highest 146 research universities in the U.S. out of more than 4,000.  

The university continues to invest in a wide breadth of research, including adding post-doctoral research fellows, and varied grant programs to help researchers, as well as encouraging student research at all levels, Delahanty said. 

The university’s 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) had 172 participants, the highest number ever, he noted. The SURE program funds promising undergraduate researchers for eight weeks over the summer to engage in faculty-supervised research. That program will culminate in a competition among participants Oct. 21-22.

Other upcoming student-focused research efforts include the 10th annual Three Minute Thesis competition for graduate students from 1-4 p.m. on Oct. 15 at the Kent Student Center Kiva.

Delahanty also noted how divisional changes such as the creation of an Office of Research Development to help researchers improve grant proposal quality led by Mark van ’t Hooft, and a new Office of Corporate Engagement, with Dave Myers recently appointed as the inaugural executive director.

One of Delahanty’s priorities since taking over as vice president of the division has been to streamline the way business and industry interact with the university, making partnerships easier and university researchers, expertise and resources more readily accessible.  

“The Office of Corporate Engagement is charged with being the front door of the university for interacting with industry at the university level,” Delahanty said.

Delahanty also took time to celebrate the successful five-year review of the Brain Health Research Institute (BHRI) by an internal review committee.

Michael Lehman, Ph.D., director of the Brain Health Research Institute, said he was pleased with the review process and excited that the committee approved the institute to continue operations for an additional five years.

“Because of the review and discussions we’ve had with senior leadership, we have made some significant changes,” Lehman said.

One notable change is creating four new specialized areas of research focus to best reflect the institute’s ongoing work. Those four areas are:

• Brain aging and health.
• Stress, trauma and mental health.
• Hormones, brain and behavior.
• Neurodiversity.  

“We’re building upon what we have accomplished as an institute and are prioritizing goals and initiates for the next phase of BHRI,” Lehman said.

Lehman also noted the institute’s annual symposium will take place Nov. 7-8, at the 5X���� Hotel and Conference Center, with Kent State's Department of Psychological Sciences Professor Angela Neal-Barnett, Ph.D., offering the keynote address titled, “Hush Little Baby: Reflections on Black Maternal Mental Health” at 6 p.m. on Nov. 7.