FAMU’s aggressive research strategy prompts big prize

TALLAHASSEE — Florida A&M University was awarded advanced research status earlier this year.  The University is now a Carnegie Level II High Activity Research University.  This designation places FAMU among the nation’s larger predominantly white universities and that distinction is significant, according to FAMU Vice President for Research Timothy Moore, Ph.D.

“Our faculty are demonstrating that FAMU can compete against other larger universities with double the faculty and continue to produce cutting edge research at ever increasing levels,” he said.

In the late 1990s there was an effort to restrict FAMU’s academic focus to undergraduate studies only. Then President Frederick Humphries successfully stopped that effort and kept the university on the research path.

“Our current position is directly linked to the efforts of previous leaders and faculty scholars.  We can stand on their shoulders and move this university forward and solve some of the nation’s most vexing scientific problems,” Moore said.

Meanwhile, Moore attributes the new status to the dramatic increase in research awards. FAMU research began the new fiscal year with a marked increase in research awards of $27.9 million in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2015–16 more than doubling awards from the same period in the previous year.  The total research awards in the 2014-15 fiscal year was $42.3.