Dear colleagues,
As the calendar year comes to an end and we look back on 2025, I am inspired by the tenacity, resilience, and community of the UConn family. We faced a year like no other, filled with unprecedented challenges to higher education and the very nature of research. Yet through every hurdle or changing circumstance, you have remained steadfast in your commitment to serving our students, propelling research to unparalleled levels, and supporting one another.
UConn has stayed true to our values as we’ve worked to continue forward progress amid our circumstances. The call to protect jobs, including current graduate students, was the top message heard at the beginning of 2025. As we close out 2025, we recognize that while many institutions across the country faced widespread workforce reductions, UConn worked deliberatively to limit job losses wherever possible. Despite a significant drop in new research awards this calendar year, our research expenditures exceeded $380 million in FY25, by far a record for the University. We remain committed to serving our communities through engaged scholarship, and our patent portfolio, another significant measure of the impact of our research of innovation, continues to grow stronger. We know these decisions and achievements have not come without pain points, but we remain committed to working together creatively as a community to identify and address areas of concern.
Thank you to all who were able to attend the recent presentation and various meetings with our federal partners from Actum, LLC. I hope you found the information shared helpful. I remain confident that our investigators at UConn are extremely well-prepared to pursue federal funding even with the rapid changes experienced this past year. This is one of the strengths of having a large, multidisciplinary research university that puts societal impact first: we can remain very competitive despite shifting priorities. Our strengths and depth in quantum, artificial intelligence, energy resilience, national security, healthy living, rare and chronic diseases, and neurodegenerative conditions position us well for federal funding in the coming year. Our OVPR team is here to help you however we can. Please reach out to research@uconn.edu if you have trouble finding any resources or answers.
On behalf of the OVPR, we wish you all a peaceful and restful holiday and we look forward to supporting our community in 2026.
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Thank you for all you do,
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Lindsay J. DiStefano, Ph.D., ATC, FNATA
Interim Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
UConn | UConn Health
Professor
Department of Kinesiology
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
Department of Public Health Sciences
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Following months of careful planning and collaboration, UConn, Yale, and the State held a successful site visit with the National Science Foundation on Dec. 4-5. Led in partnership with Yale by UConn key personnel Pamir Alpay, Jit Banerjee, Caroline Dealy, Amit Savkar, and Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead, the QuantumCT effort is a finalist for a record-breaking grant from the Innovations Engines program. Connecticut is establishing itself as the quantum accelerator for the nation, with UConn research playing a prominent role.
The University is ready for this moment, and the OVPR is proud to contribute. Kudos to our incredible faculty and staff (particularly Anna Gault Galjan, Bethany Javidi, Heike Brueckner, Sanjeev Nayak, Vivek Ramakrishnan, Cara Workman, Victoria Lowther, Mike DiDonato, Matt Mroz, Melanie Noble, Matt Engelhardt) who supported the proposal, coordinated the site visit, worked closely with Yale and the Governor’s office, produced vital communications, and helped us make a compelling case to the NSF. The University-wide quantum efforts are now posted on a special website and are featured in UConn’s latest video advertisement.
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Please share questions and ideas using this short webform. We will answer a couple of questions here with each communication.
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Idea: "For sub awards, it would be helpful to set them up for the duration of the project if funds are available."
A: Good news! SPS recently updated the subaward issuance process in an effort to ease future amendment burden by forward funding whenever possible. Please be certain to review your initial notice of award from the award set-up team which will alert you if this is a suitable method for your subrecipients. Please see overview of UConn Storrs Subrecipient Issuance.
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In June 2025, the University shared several changes in the distribution of indirect cost recoveries in response to the University’s budget situation and uncertainty at the state and federal levels. We are in active discussions with the president and provost, and other university leadership, including deans and center/institute directors, to identify if there are resources available at this time that can be strategically distributed to support our research community. We will have a further update at the beginning of the spring semester.
We understand the uncertainty individual faculty are experiencing with the budget. Please know this is the same uncertainty the university leadership is experiencing, at an institutional level. We are all working diligently to ensure the university can maintain critical operations throughout these volatile times, including the ability to conduct research (infrastructure, services, personnel) as well as the ability to invest, grow, pivot, and respond to emergencies. Please work with your unit leaders if there are critical research-related needs without available resources. The deans will work with the OVPR to address these needs whenever possible.
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During the faculty presentation with Actum LLC, they advised us to send a consolidated list of federal funding proposals that seem to be “stuck” in review to our governmental relations team so that they can be shared with our federal delegation. If you have a federal proposal that seems to be stuck “in limbo,” please use this brief Qualtrics survey to share information about the situation.
*Reminder – please reach out to and/or copy Governmental Relations (govrel@uconn.edu) if you have an opportunity or need to meet with our federal or state delegation or staff. This is vital for ensuring that everyone is aware of these important conversations, allowing coordination/support to be offered, avoiding unnecessary redundancy, and as a courtesy to elected officials.
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Sponsored Program Services is pleased to announce that the online Research Insights for Faculty (RIF) application is active and ready for community use.
RIF is available to faculty and administrative staff members for transparency into their sponsored account financials, providing account views targeted toward project account review and management. Users navigate through RIF from either a PI dashboard or using a search to review account summaries, transactions, and monthly reports.
RIF access is automatically granted to users in the Account Supervisor role in KFS which is typically the lead Principal Investigator. Departmental administrators with access to Effort Reporting & Commitments (ERC) have been automatically granted access to the same departments in RIF. There is also a “projections” feature available to trained users, which allows account summaries and statements to incorporate known/planned transactions that are not yet posted to KFS. For questions about access and training, please contact Jen Lamontagne.
This application is the product of a multi-year collaboration between SPS Business Integrations & Solutions (BIS) and the Internal Insights & Innovation (i3) team in the Provost’s office. We thank both teams for their dedication to developing, testing, and launching RIF as a significant new post-award tool!
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Calling all science artists -- the FRAME Research Art Contest deadline of December 31, 2025, is coming up soon!
Showcase your stunning samples, your majestic models, or your pretty Petri dishes.
Winning entries will be displayed in OVPR spaces, creating a gallery that celebrates the creativity and diversity of UConn research.
This opportunity is open to all current UConn and UConn Health students, faculty, and staff. For more information and to submit your work, click here.
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Please complete a brief survey to help guide our communications efforts.
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UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH
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Whetten Graduate Center
438 Whitney Road Extension, Unit 1006
Storrs, Connecticut 06269-1086
research.uconn.edu
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