June 18th, 2026

Research rarely follows a straight line. It often begins with a question, a conversation, an observation, or a problem that needs a new way of thinking. Across the U, those beginnings take shape as faculty, students, staff, and partners test ideas, build collaborations, pursue funding, share findings, and translate knowledge into action.

What connects these many paths is a shared purpose: using research, scholarship, and creative inquiry to improve the human experience. Across disciplines, researchers at the U are advancing knowledge that helps us understand health and disease, strengthen communities, protect our environment, expand access to education, inform policy, fuel innovation, illuminate culture, and imagine better futures.

We also know that meaningful research requires more than individual excellence. It requires time, coordination, resources, trust, and support. The Office of the Vice President for Research helps strengthen the conditions that allow this work to grow by supporting researchers across the full research enterprise, aligning resources with institutional priorities, and helping ideas move from possibility to progress.

The many paths of research are a strength of the U. Together, they reflect the breadth of our disciplines, the commitment of our people, and the promise of what becomes possible when discovery is supported with purpose, care, and vision.

Erin Rothwell, PhD

Vice President for Research