University of Minnesota: Interdisciplinary Informatics

General Questions

 

Why is the University focusing on and investing in informatics?
Strength in interdisciplinary informatics—including bioinformatics, health informatics, computational biology and systems biology—has become essential to the University’s capacity to respond to challenges in health, energy, medicine, and the environment.

There has been a dramatic increase of biological data across all areas of science and health, along with comparable advances in computing power and information processing algorithms and systems. While the University already possesses core strengths in the field of informatics, faculty are dispersed across departments and colleges without an organization to draw them together in new educational, research, and training synergies.

The University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Informatics Program (UMII) will bring together existing and nascent informatics communities at the University, support their development, and foster productive collaboration.

 

How much is the University investing in the Interdisciplinary Informatics Program (UMII)?
Over the next 5 years, the University will invest $35 million in the recruitment of faculty and the development of the graduate program.

Approximately $29 million will be invested in hiring 21 new interdisciplinary informatics faculty, with a goal of hiring half of the new faculty in the next two years.

 

Where is the money coming from?
The $35 million in funding for the University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Informatics Program (UMII) includes an institutional investment from the University, which includes a portion of the University’s Microsoft settlement.

 

 

Faculty and Staffing

 

What is the hiring plan for faculty and staff?
Faculty recruitment and the development of the graduate program will be first priorities, adding to the University's existing strengths for this program. Once we have made progress in building a critical mass of both core quantitative research talent and sophisticated informatics users, we will recruit a permanent director for the program.

The director will play a major role in the recruitment of faculty, shaping future directions for the program, and establishing the norms for collaborative, synergistic work across the University’s many participating entities.


Our goal is to hire 21 new interdisciplinary informatics faculty over a five-year period. We will seek to recruit both outstanding individuals and established research groups. Searches will be undertaken jointly with colleges.

Approximately two-thirds of those new hires will be informaticists, faculty whose primary scholarly work is to develop innovative informatics tools and methods. Approximately one-third of the new hires will be faculty who are high-level users of informatics tools in their research.

The anticipated distribution of new hires by rank will be approximately 40 percent assistant professor, 40 percent associate professor, and 20 percent full professor. Unlike conventional academic searches, new faculty in the interdisciplinary informatics program will be provided with the opportunity to negotiate their eventual tenure home or homes as part of the hiring process, though collegiate priorities certainly will affect searches for positions funded in partnership with specific colleges.

 

Will the University invest in infrastructure?

Though not a formal part of the University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Informatics Program (UMII), the research infrastructure to support interdisciplinary informatics is critical to this endeavor and will also receive appropriate investment based on a needs assessment currently underway.

The research infrastructure will support both those who develop innovative informatics tools and methods as well as those use informatics tools in their research.

 

 

More Questions? e-mail the UM Interdisciplinary Informatics program.

 

 

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