Contact: Terri Goss Kinzy
Sept. 17, 2019
We are pleased to announce that the Office of the Vice President for Research is now the Office of Research and Innovation at Western Michigan University.
Why Innovation? The Merriam-Webster definition of innovation says it all: 1) the introduction of something new; 2) a new idea, method, or device : novelty. Innovation is also a much more inclusive term, recognizing novel thoughts, programs, artistic expression, educational programs, clinical services and traditional laboratory research. This new title better reflects the breadth and depth of scholarly activities, creative achievements and research and sponsored programs at WMU.
Research remains a point of pride at WMU. It is not just the scholarly accomplishments themselves, or the funding they often attract, but the fact that research and creative activities engage staff, undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in these contributions. Furthermore, research and innovation often result from our partnerships with corporations, community and government agencies. It also recognizes commercialization or technology transfer, areas where WMU is increasingly contributing to economic development in the region via the Introduction to Customer Discovery program, patents and licenses and the recent donation from the Monroe Brown Foundation to support advancement of university intellectual property to companies and jobs.
As always, the Office of Research and Innovation (ORI) supports our staff, students and faculty in the pursuit of their scholarly activities via our compliance programs, research development and training initiatives, internal grant program management, tech transfer, and external grant submission and management services. As we have seen, Broncos have big ideas, and this new title recognizes the great diversity of these ideas executed by the members of our community that make WMU stand out from so many other institutions of higher learning.
Terri Goss Kinzy
Vice President of Research