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Editor's note: This is part three of a multi-part series examining university funding in Texas. In this installment, we'll examine another step UTD must take if it wants to be a Tier 1 university - increasing its annual research funding.
Research funding is a major component by which a university is judged in terms of its status among Tier 1 universities, according to the Association of American Universities (AAU).
A common benchmark against which research funding is measured is $100 million annually, UTD does about $40 million annually, according to a report issued by UTD President David Daniel to the Texas Senate earlier this year.
However, $100 million may not actually tell the whole tale of what makes a Tier 1 research university.
"[That number] was established 10 years ago, and it doesn't really take inflation into account," said UTD Provost Hobson Wildenthal. "$100 million is a good round number, but it isn't what it used to be. It's still more than anybody in Texas generates outside of UT and A&M."
A&M and UT are the only two public universities in Texas that are recognized as Tier 1 research universities. Rice University, a private institution, is also Tier 1.
Bruce Gnade, UTD vice president for research, took a similar view in explaining what really defines a top-level research university. He said $100 million isn't a random number, but is instead based on the costs for supporting Ph.D. students and their research.
"The number of Ph.D. degrees a university awards annually is another important metric," Gnade said. "Since an average Ph.D. takes five years to achieve, you need approximately 1,500 Ph.D. students enrolled."
Gnade said supporting a Ph.D. student and their research requires about $60,000, which, when multiplied by the benchmark of 300 Ph.D. degrees awarded annually to achieve Tier 1 status, requires about $90 million annually.
"You add in post-docs and it's easy to see why it requires $100 million in research funding," Gnade said.
Wildenthal said the first step in UTD getting to that level is generating more external research funding. There are generally three different sources of funding for university research: state funding, federal funding and funding from the private sector.
"Texas is behind in funding universities, everybody is agreeing with that, it's a simple fact," Wildenthal said. "By any standard we are way behind the national average."
Gnade said UTD is competitive when it comes to winning research contracts at all three levels of funding, but UTD still lags far behind A&M and UT in terms of raw research dollars.
A&M, with 1,596 faculty members, does $493 million in research annually. UT has 1,830 faculty members and does $431 million annually.
UTD does only $44 million per year with 431 faculty members.
But, in terms of per faculty research, the gap between UTD and Texas' Tier 1 schools doesn't seem as imposing. UTD does $129,000 per faculty member compared to $235,500 for UT and $308,800 for A&M.
"To generate more research dollars, we've got to hire more faculty that have the distinction, record and energy to write more research grants and get them approved," Wildenthal said.
"As the number of our faculty grows to 600, we'll only need to grow their per faculty research to $170,000 a year to reach our goal of $100 million," Gnade said. "When we reach it will be governed by the growth of our number of faculty, which will be driven by enrollment."
UTD's enrollment is increasing steadily. As of the fall 2008 semester, UTD's enrollment crested 15,000 students.
But Tier 1 status may not be something that is simply a factor of size, nor is it something that can be defined simply by money.
"Look at Rice - compared to some universities, they're insignificant, because they're small, but by most accounts their Tier 1," Wildenthal said.
$100 million is a great number for UTD, but compared to the amount of research done at the University of Missouri, it's not a big deal, Wildenthal said.
Wildenthal also pointed out the amount spent per student was important. UTD spends $12,000 per student per year, a small sum compared to the $20,000 spent by some Tier 1 universities.
"It's all about how much you've got to spend," Wildenthal said.
