Powering Discovery for the Public Good

GOAL 3

Affirm Oklahoma State University's place among the nation's leading land-grant Carnegie R1 universities by expanding its strength-based research portfolio to translate knowledge into real-world impact, deepen strategic partnerships, advance interdisciplinary collaboration and invest in the faculty and people who drive our work.

Oklahoma State University was built on a promise that knowledge should serve people. As a Carnegie R1 institution and proud land-grant university, OSU occupies a rare and powerful position: one of fewer than 60 land-grant universities in the nation recognized for very high research activity.

Our research is anchored in areas where our expertise runs deep and our potential runs deeper. OSU's strengths position us at the intersection of the challenges most critical to Oklahoma and beyond — from human and animal health, agriculture, aerospace, energy and human performance to emerging fields that are expanding the boundaries of what OSU research can do and who it can serve.

Translating research into public benefit requires great science and strategic partnerships that strengthen our ability to pursue complex, large-scale initiatives.

At the heart of this work are people. Faculty who pursue questions others haven't thought to ask. Graduate students pushing the boundaries of their disciplines and undergraduates working side by side with researchers learning to think critically and act decisively.

Discovery is not the finish line. It is the starting point. OSU's unstoppable commitment is to ensure that what we learn in our labs, institutes and research stations reaches every corner of our state and beyond.

OBJECTIVE 1 

Grow strategic research focus areas where OSU has established strength or emerging opportunity, and invest in the interdisciplinary structures, faculty, graduate students and facilities that sustain long-term growth and reward bold cross-college collaboration.

Key Performance Indicators and Tasks 

• Increase research expenditures by 10%
• Increase number of externally funded interdisciplinary research projects by 10%
• Develop clear policies for affiliate faculty, interdisciplinary centers and institutes to be completed by 2028

OBJECTIVE 2 

Grow external research funding by expanding research development capacity for complex and large grant efforts and expanding strategic partnerships — corporate, state agency, tribal, federal laboratory and global — to grow research funding, provide undergraduate and graduate research opportunities, and amplify OSU’s public impact that achieve greater societal impact.

Key Performance Indicators  

• Increase the number of large federally funded, center-level proposals submitted annually by 10%
• Increase OSU’s ranking among R1 universities in overall research expenditures as reported on the NSF HERD survey
• Increase the number of scholarly works disseminated in the professional literature by 10%
• Increase the number of undergraduates participating in research

OBJECTIVE 3 

Translate discovery into application across all disciplines by strengthening technology transfer commercialization and pathways from scholarship to tangible public benefit.

Key Performance Indicators and Tasks

• Increase the number of invention disclosures, U.S. patent applications and licenses executed per year and increase by 10%
• Streamline the mechanism for developing startups formed from OSU intellectual property per year by 2028
• Increase the annual licensing and royalty revenues from OSU intellectual property by 10%
• Track the number of active private-public partnerships

OBJECTIVE 4 

Invest in the faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and staff who make discovery possible, creating the conditions for bold work in service of OSU’s tripartite mission of teaching, research and Extension.

Key Performance Indicators and Tasks

• Increase the number of postdoctoral scholars supported by 10%
• Increase the number of training grant proposals submitted annually by 5%