UConn’s Board of Trustees Wednesday afternoon voted unanimously to invest $46 million in 10 research and entrepreneurship faculty and new lab space and equipment as part of a plan to increase research and new business start-up ventures.
UConn’s Academic Affairs and Research, Entrepreneurship and Innovation committees  recommended the investment to the full Board of Trustees during a joint virtual meeting on March 23.
The goal of the investment is to recruit from a wide pool of top researchers.Those new hires and the equipment would be paid via state bond funds over the next five years. The state Bond Commission still needs to sign off on that funding.Â
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In addition, under the plan, the university would foot the bill for salaries, equipment and lab space in the sixth year and beyond.
The goal, said UConn Provost Dr. Carl Lejuez, is for the individuals who are hired to develop startups and allow for creating “an ecosystem that further generates additional opportunities for other faculty to learn how to be entrepreneurial in this way and how to think about commercialization.”
Those new hires would be studying in various fields, the university said, including biomedical sciences and engineering; clean and renewable energy; cybersecurity; genomics; and sustainable agriculture, among others.The investment coincides with the school’s efforts to ramp-up the amount of annual research funding it attracts from outside sources, including the federal government. UConn Interim President Radenka Maric recently told the Hartford Business Journal that UConn can reach its goal of hitting $500 million in annual research funding in the next five years.
