VCU hosts high-profile research and innovation forums to drive regional collaboration

By Emily Komornik
Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation

Virginia Commonwealth University recently served as a hub for aligning the state’s research priorities, hosting three high-profile meetings in the past month. The gatherings united national policymakers, southeastern research powerhouses and Virginia’s top academic minds to foster a culture of collaboration across Virginia and throughout the Southeast.

Hosted by VCU’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, these forums targeted critical issues in higher education research, including navigating federal funding shifts, leveraging artificial intelligence and accelerating the commercialization of breakthroughs to boost the regional economy.

“To me, fostering a culture of collaboration at Virginia Commonwealth University is not limited to our institution alone; this spirit transcends VCU’s campuses and its faculty,” said P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president for research and innovation. “We aren’t just doing groundbreaking research – we are serving as a leader and connector to our sister institutions. We are able to achieve so much more when we work together.”

SURA Board of Directors

VCU welcomed the board of directors for the Southeastern Universities Research Association, an organization currently chaired by Rao, on May 14. A highlight of the meeting was the celebration of the newly formed SURATech, a partnership between SURA and Virginia Tech, recently selected as the new management and operating contractor for the Jefferson Laboratory. Leaders shared upcoming expansion plans across nuclear physics, data science and applied energy.

APLU Vice President for Research Policy and Advocacy

Bridging the gap between Richmond and Washington, D.C., VCU’s OVPRI hosted Deborah Altenburg, vice president for research policy and advocacy at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities on May 18. This high-level touchpoint allowed university leadership to learn more about emerging legislative and funding trends in Washington, D.C., while sharing the specific resources and support VCU researchers need to thrive.

Senior Research Officers of Virginia

Concluding the series of high-profile events, VCU hosted the first-ever in-person meeting of all the senior research officers of Virginia on May 18, bringing together leaders from eleven institutions across the state who collectively represent a nearly $2.5 billion research enterprise. The forum focused on collective approaches to federal funding challenges, state partnerships, regional economic impact and more. Throughout the day, the officers engaged in panel discussions featuring leaders from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, Activation Capital, Virginia Bio and Virginia Catalyst to discuss moving lab innovations into the commercial marketplace. Additional sessions featured insights regarding state advocacy with government relations leaders from the represented institutions, as well as a forward-looking presentation on the infrastructure, ethics and collaborative opportunities surrounding artificial intelligence in Virginia research with representatives from the Commonwealth AI Initiative and AI READY VA.

The senior research officers were also given a tour of the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, where they explored the Children’s Pavilion and learned firsthand from the leadership regarding the growth and vision of the Children’s Health Research Institute.

Senior research officers and their institutions that attended this summit included:

• Omar Faison, Ph.D., Virginia State University
• Ken Fridley, Ph.D., Old Dominion University
• Nicole Guajardo, Ph.D., Christopher Newport University
• Andre Marshall, Ph.D., George Mason University
• Lori McMahon, Ph.D., University of Virginia
• Jeanne Mekolichick, Ph.D., Radford University
• P. Sriram Rao, Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University
• Daniel Sui, Ph.D., Virginia Tech
• Anthony Tongen, Ph.D., James Madison University
• Alyson Wilson, Ph.D., William & Mary
• Aixi Zhou, Ph.D., Norfolk State University