Committee on Research
Year End Report 2008-2009

Membership: Mirella Vasquez Brooks, Beei-Huan Chao, Eric DeCarlo, Patrick Henry (Chair), Jason Maddock, Todd Reed, Kelly Roberts, Magi Sarvimaki, Bruce Shiramizu, Anna Wieczorek, Michael Jones (guest) and Klaus Keil (SEC Liaison)

The COR met 7 times between September 2008 and May 2009. Issues that were monitored or investigated included: rumors about RTRF and grad student tuition, the new policy on Post Docs, the reorganization of the Pacific Biosciences Research Center and implementing the policy on classified and proprietary research approved by the Senate in November 2007.

During the course of the year the COR met with David Lassner, Vice President for Information Technology and Facility Security Officer; Gary Ostrander, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education (twice); Marilyn Dunlap, PBRC Associate Interim Director; David Au, PBRC; Ken Kaneshiro, PBRC; Mark Martindale, PBRC.

Issues Discussed At More Than One Meeting:

On November 14, 2007 the Manoa Faculty Senate passed “A POLICY ON CLASSIFIED AND PROPRIETARY RESEARCH” which requires the UH administration to publicize all UH classified, restricted and proprietary research projects. CoR is charged with the responsibility to monitor its implementation. All research at the university is already made public in the Board of Regent’s minutes; it is just not labeled whether or not it is classified. Currently there are only a few (<6) ongoing projects that are classified research. President McClain needs to approve the Faculty Senate’s draft proposal and then implement it as an executive policy. However, he is proceeding with caution taking into consideration what happened at other universities where labs and faculty were attacked because of their research. CoR met twice with VC Ostrander and once with VP Lassner, in his role as Facility Security Officer. VP Lassner’s concerns were the protection of PIs’ safety and violation of contracts between UH and the funding agencies. He suggested two possibilities. First, a committee could review the list of relevant projects once a semester so long as the committee agrees to keep the information confidential. The review committee could be CoR or newly established. Second, publishing a list of all contracts and grants that have any publication restriction but not identifying what that restriction is. The November 14 resolution does not require the listing of PI names. A minimal plan of publishing the titles and funding agencies of all restricted research but not the PI names and listing the location of the work as either on or off campus would appear to meet the resolution requirements and address UH administration’s concerns. Next year’s CoR should inquire whether either of these plans would be acceptable to all.

On August 28, 2008 the Chancellor announced the dissolution of Pacific Biosciences Research Center after two attempts over eight years failed to find a permanent PBRC director. VC Ostrander summarized the Manoa administration’s reasons for that decision and plans for PBRC in a letter to SEC chair Klaus Keil dated October 8, 2008. The overall plan is to disburse PBRC faculty, support staff and their associated RTRF and G funds to other units and departments. Dr. Keil referred this matter to CoR and CAB. Both committees conducted independent investigations. Both met separately with VC Ostrander and representatives of PBRC. The PBRC representatives distributed to CoR a document entitled “Response to Letter from Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education Gary K. Ostrander to Senate Executive Committee Chair, Dr. Klaus Keil, Concerning the Reorganization of the Activities of the Pacific Biosciences Research Center.” The CoR discussed the contents of the two documents with their respective authors and had further discussions within the committee. Interestingly, both CoR and CAB independently came to the same basic conclusions. That is, neither committee could resolve the conflicting claims of the two parties and there are established procedures for a reorganization/dissolution of a unit that need to be followed. The Manoa Faculty Senate passed a resolution supporting the second conclusion at its April 15, 2009 meeting.