research strategic plan 2024-2029

Progress Tracker

The Gillings School six-year research strategic plan, drafted in March 2024, outlines our roadmap for advancing public health research. Building on our status as the top public health school for NIH funding, we aim to strengthen research infrastructure, foster collaboration, create an inclusive environment, and amplify our global impact.

The plan's vision, goals, and strategies were developed by the Gillings Research Task Force, involving over 130 faculty, staff, students, alumni, and stakeholders. This interactive progress tracker will provide updates on our efforts to enhance health equity and outcomes.

plan pdf

Theme: Strengthen research planning and infrastructure for local to global impact.

PROGRESS

Goal 1.1

By 2029, Gillings will have an effective process to identify and respond to current and anticipated public health priorities and/or potential opportunities.

Strategy 1.1.1

Further develop systematic approaches to assess and prioritize future public health research opportunities for investment; and then develop internal research capabilities to respond to these needs.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Goal 1.2

By 2029, Gillings will have robust research support infrastructure, including pre- and post-award support, that sufficiently supports researchers across departments.

Strategy 1.2.1

Conduct an assessment of Gillings' relationships with key UNC research Centers, with guidance on optimizing those relationships and resources while cultivating the strength of school resources

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 1.2.2

Conduct additional benchmarking across UNC and other peer schools of public health to determine current practices and trends for research staffing; and then determine options for, and identify, an efficient, effective and fair system to support the research enterprise across Gillings.

Progress summary

This effort is currently underway.

Project details

August 2025: Based on data collected internally and across UNC, we are initiating a phased approach to developing pre-award shared services. The first phase is focused on the development of shared processes, such as budget templates, proposal intake processes, etc. Additionally, the university has a new initiative called ServiceFirst that is identifying operational efficiencies and strategic cost-savings while promoting excellence in administrative service delivery. Research Administration is one of the focus areas of this initiative.
August 2024: An implementation committee has been formed to begin addressing this strategy.

Strategy 1.2.3

Better ensure that Gillings researchers are aware of relevant school and UNC core resources (including Centers, see 1.2.1) to facilitate the efficient conduct of high-quality research and how to leverage UNC resources available to them.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Goal 1.3

By 2029, Gillings will have stronger administrative support for the unique demands of global health research.

Strategy 1.3.1

Assess needs for (i.e., skill set and FTE), and then strengthen specialized staff support for global health.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Goal 1.4

By 2029, Gillings will have robust infrastructure and training resources to support student and postdoc research.

Strategy 1.4.1

Improve infrastructure and training resources to support student and postdoctoral research.

Progress summary

This effort is currently underway.

Project details

August 2025:
- We are updating Student Research Funding webpage.
- We are developing a research resource webpage for Gillings postdocs and looking into creating a Gillings School postdoc research orientation.

Goal 1.5

By 2029, Gillings will have research spaces fit for purpose, with adequate facilities for researchers to carry out their work.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Theme: Support research collaboration, with key focus on health equity, global health, community-engaged research, and ethical conduct of research

PROGRESS

Goal 2.1

By 2029, Gillings will have structures in place for potential collaborators — including students and post-docs — to identify each other.

Strategy 2.1.1

Create and sustain a variety of mechanisms and resources for Gillings researchers to identify potential collaborators, with a special focus on junior faculty.

Progress summary

This effort is currently underway.

Project details

August 2025: We are developing and testing a chatbot/virtual assistant called the Gillings Research Expertise Promoter (GREP) that can answer questions about Gillings research expertise. This works has been supported by the Provost's AI Acceleration program.

August 2024: An implementation committee has been formed to begin addressing this strategy.

Strategy 2.1.2

Strengthen global health and community-based researcher networks within Gillings and with other institutions.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Goal 2.2

By 2028, Gillings will have structures in place to strengthen ethical conduct of research with individuals and communities historically excluded from research participation.

Strategy 2.2.1

Develop a Gillings technical assistance team to help researchers improve inclusion of participants from communities historically excluded from research.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 2.2.2

Specify needs for (i.e., skill set and FTE), and then strengthen specialized staff support for fostering the research approaches delineated in Goal 2, including leveraging TraCS resources in this area as fully as possible.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Theme: Provide an inclusive and supportive research environment

PROGRESS

Goal 3.1

By 2029, Gillings students, post-docs, faculty and staff across ranks will experience our research environment as inclusive and supportive.

Strategy 3.1.1

Support a research environment that enhances research contributions of faculty, students, post-docs and staff, including those from communities historically excluded from research along the lines of race and ethnicity, gender and sexual diversity, place, and other factors, while also creating an environment where communities traditionally excluded from research are involved as participants.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 3.1.2

Formally recognize, via SPH APT guidelines and departmental expectations, two key research areas (community-engaged research; innovation and translation) essential for fulfilling the Gillings mission but not yet sufficiently supported in how we develop, retain or promote our faculty.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Goal 3.2

By 2029, Gillings will have additional mechanisms to support development and recognition of individual faculty members.

Strategy 3.2.1

Identify and support research professional development initiatives, including creative mechanisms for faculty sabbaticals or mini-sabbaticals.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 3.2.2

Return a small portion of faculty grant F&A to PIs.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 3.2.3

Strategically recognize our faculty for their research contributions.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Goal 3.3

By 2029, Gillings will have ensured fair (equitable) work standards for students and post-docs conducting research at Gillings or on behalf of Gillings PIs.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Theme: Accelerate and communicate research impact

PROGRESS

Goal 4.1

By 2029, the Gillings School will have established a thriving culture and infrastructure around innovation, entrepreneurship, and translation for impact.

Strategy 4.1.1

Strengthen translation resources to increase the number (percentage) of researchers who engage in this work.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 4.1.2

Increase innovation infrastructure, along with visibility and awareness of that infrastructure, to increase numbers of Gillings faculty who take their innovative ideas to the next step.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 4.1.3

Ensure the Innovation team actively forges close connections with Gillings Practice.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Goal 4.2

By 2029, Gillings will better define, measure and quantify the impact of our work.

Strategy 4.2.1

Define a continuum of research impact and map our research to this continuum.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

August 2024: An implementation committee has been formed to begin addressing this strategy.

Strategy 4.2.2

Develop structures and key deliverables to ensure we have mechanisms in place to elevate our impact.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

August 2024: An implementation committee has been formed to begin addressing this strategy.

Goal 4.3

By 2029, Gillings will enhance our facility in communicating the impact of our research for multiple constituencies and audiences.

Strategy 4.3.1

Facilitate a process to identify, and keep updated, a key subset (no more than 5) of impact areas where we are national and global leaders, and identify approaches to amplify those strengths with simple, visual, memorable outputs that can be tailored to defined audiences (e.g., other Gillings researchers; community members; philanthropists, potential students, legislators; the broad public; etc.).

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 4.3.2

Elevate the visibility of researcher strengths and how they connect with other Gillings researchers.

Progress summary

Coming soon.

Project details

Coming soon.

Strategy 4.3.3

Broadly communicate our impact with new tools and mechanisms.

Progress summary

This effort is currently underway.

Project details

August 2025: We have created a Public Health Research at the UNC Gillings School LinkedIn page to highlight the ongoing research being conducted by our faculty, staff, and students.