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2025 Visionary Plan

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Theme 1: Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities, and Discovery

Goal

Create a culture of excellence that results in flourishing, sustainable, and widely recognized research, scholarly and creative activities, and discovery in a variety of disciplines and endeavors that benefit society as a whole.

Strategic Action Plan (pdf)

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Activities and Accomplishments

  • Total research expenditures grew 36% over the past decade – from $160.7M to a record high of nearly $218.6M in FY19. Our national ranking for this key university benchmark measure improved from 75th to 68th among public research universities.

  • Researchers are actively competing for funding at unprecedented levels, resulting in more proposals submitted and more dollars awarded. Since launching K-State 2025, annual award dollars grew by 50%, from $137.4M in FY12 to $206.3M in FY21, and the university received nearly $1.6B in grant awards.

  • The university was awarded a growing number of major prestigious multi-state, multi-institutional major grants with an international and interdisciplinary focus.

  • As the only university in the country with four USAID Feed the Future Innovation Labs, K-State is a leader conducting cutting-edge research on critical global food challenges.

  • The Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Inquiry was established to facilitate, increase and measure participation of undergraduates in meaningful research, scholarly and creative activities, and discovery, or RSCAD.

  • Research faculty development was enhanced through a variety of initiatives, including annual visits of new faculty with granting agencies in Washington, D.C., and compliance training.

  • Research visibility was raised through communication initiatives such as RSCAD Momentum, a weekly newsletter; an expanded research website; a social media presence; the launch of Seek, K-State's flagship research magazine; and research showcase events.

  • To better support our researchers, research administration was modernized with major process improvements and systems development, including a proposal and awards electronic repository system, Cayuse SP; an electronic research compliance system, IRB Manager; an online compliance training system, CITI; Research and Discovery Activity Reporting, RADAR; and Research Information Security Enclave, RISE.

  • Corporate sponsored research increased, with 159 projects totaling $8.5M in FY21. The university’s master agreements with strategic industry partners grew exponentially, from four master agreements in FY11 to 89 in FY21.

Leading the Way

As a national leader with four prestigious Feed the Future Innovation Labs, Kansas State University is building global food systems capacity and helping to meet food demands of the world’s growing population. 

Beginning in 2013, K-State was named the winner of four highly competitive grants totaling more than $100 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Those grants established the four Feed the Future Innovations Labs: the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sorghum and Millet, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for the Reduction of Post-Harvest Loss and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Sustainable Intensification. 

Through a combination of research, education and outreach, the labs focus on international collaboration to end world hunger. K-State’s work in the Feed the Future initiative has brought together 24 other U.S. universities, 24 foreign universities, 47 private-sector partners, 10 U.S. nongovernment organizations, eight other innovation labs and 49 international organizations.

The Feed the Future labs bring K-State’s land-grant mission and agricultural expertise across the globe. By studying emerging agricultural issues on the front lines in foreign countries, the labs also safeguard U.S. agriculture.