Looking Forward, Pursuing Impact
Next year will mark Jefferson’s bicentennial: two centuries of leadership in education and research since the 1824 founding of Jefferson Medical College (now Sidney Kimmel Medical College) and 140 years since the founding of the Philadelphia Textile School. As proud as we are of our history, we are laser focused on the future, asking ourselves this fundamental question: How best can we increase the beneficial impact that our faculty and students have as builders, creators and healers of society — particularly given the unique merger of Thomas Jefferson University and Philadelphia University in 2017?
The goal of having a positive, meaningful impact for communities here and across the globe is at the heart of our new strategic plan for research. That plan builds on the strong foundation the Jefferson research enterprise has established during the past decade: We have expanded research infrastructure and resources, nurtured new transdisciplinary and multi-institutional partnerships, and begun pursuing a range of new opportunities for discovery, translation and application addressing major societal needs. As a result — to cite just two significant metrics — external funding for Jefferson research was over $200 million with a 55% increase in NIH funding since 2016.
Today, we are engaging concretely across disciplines, professions and geographies. Jefferson researchers are, for example, helping drive economic development in Pennsylvania and preserving artisanal textile processes in Burkina Faso in West Africa; translating basic science discoveries into new cancer treatments; creating efficient methods to track changes in ocean flows; and conceiving ways to reverse cognitive deficits caused by lead exposure.
Over the next five years, the Jefferson research enterprise will grow in both magnitude and impact. We are providing more support for the broad array of research and scholarship undertaken by our faculty, students and postdocs — adding new facilities and technical capabilities; creating more flexible laboratory spaces; increasing intramural funding; and expanding research faculty and support staff. (We are also bolstering the team leading the Jefferson research enterprise, and I encourage you to read the Research Perspective, written by Dr. David Whellan, who was recently inaugurated deputy provost for research.)
Looking forward, a focal point for our research vision is our centers of research excellence concept: developing selected areas of research strength into larger scale, multidisciplinary centers capable of garnering meaningful philanthropic support and corporate investment. This is the logical next stage for our team science journey, and the core of some of these are already in place. Those up-and-running programs include the Center for Computational Medicine, the Center for Vaccines & Pandemic Preparedness, the Annesley Eye Brain Center and the Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities. Others are poised for formal launch, such as the Institute for Global Health Security, the Center for Primary Care Research, the Rehabilitation Institute, and the Convergence Institute. All of these centers of research excellence will continue to build interdisciplinary collaborations designed to tackle complex problems that cannot be solved without deep, multifaceted expertise.
While our major research programs are diverse in focus, they share three fundamental characteristics. First, they each address a future state — a vision of society’s concrete needs through the 21st century. Second, they each leverage specific Jefferson strengths in order to have meaningful, measurable impact. Third, they each prioritize courageous, paradigm-breaking work — striving for major leaps forward, not merely incremental progress.
These characteristics are woven into Jefferson’s robust, forward-looking culture. And they reflect a research environment that sparkles with excitement, engagement and achievement.
Please read on to learn more about the people who make the Jefferson research enterprise so extraordinary, and about the impact they are having on the world around us.