MORGANTOWN – WVU President Michael Benson on Friday announced a new research partnership with Johns Hopkins University.
WVU is contributing $2 million and JHU is contributing $5 million of philanthropically secured funds to a three-year joint funding program, Benson told the Board of Governors during the BOG’s meeting.
Benson, JHU President Ron Daniels, incoming WVU Provost Beverly Wendland and JHU Interim Provost Lainie Rutkow explained a bit about the JHU-WVU Research Collaborative, and a subsequent press release expanded on some of the details.
Under the partnership, led by the two universities’ provost offices, researchers will receive seed support to develop innovative projects, generate preliminary findings and build the foundation for larger externally funded research efforts.
Awards of up to $150,000 per project will support research efforts for as long as two years. The funding is intended to initiate new collaborations, generate preliminary data and position teams for competitive external funding opportunities. Each proposal must be led jointly by two principal investigators — one from Johns Hopkins and one from WVU.
The collaboration could cover such areas as nursing, engineering, medicine and neuroscience. Priority areas include neuroscience research focused on substance use, mental health, dementia and neurosurgical interventions, as well as studies examining environmental exposures and population health.
Researchers will also be encouraged to explore questions related to urban-rural health and well-being, drawing on the distinct experiences of communities in Baltimore – JHU’s home – and throughout West Virginia.
All four speakers told the BOG about the commonalities and exisitng partnerships and collaborations of the two universities. For Benson, among other things, he earned his master’s degree a JHU. Wendland worked more than two decades at JHU. And Rutkow’s husband is a WVU alumnus.
Daniels said, “In this moment of a deeply polarized America, we thought that this would be a very important project to be able to think about how we could spawn joint research activity of interest to faculty in both institutions.”
WVU is a public university in a Red state while JHU is a private university in a Blue state, he said. “At this point in America, that’s just another really exciting dimension to our work together, and for that we’re really grateful for your partnership.”
Rutkow said, “The sky is the limit here.”
