Michael McRobbie

By Jan R. Holloway, UITS; Lauren J. Bryant, RUGS; and Shannon F. Walden, R&SP

 

McRobbie

Photo by John McBermott

If Michael McRobbie had a slogan for his new role as IU vice president for research, it’s a good bet that it would feature the words "cooperation" and "world-class."

Both feature large in what McRobbie terms his proudest accomplishment so far as IU’s vice president for information technology—lifecycle replacement planning and access to major software.

"Everyone has a desktop machine that is no more than three years old, and the financial structures are in place to replace those machines every three years," says McRobbie, who came from Australia in 1997 to join IU. "At the same time, the university community can now get software effectively for free."

Cooperation among university administrators, faculty, and staff enabled lifecycle funding for information technology, including desktop computers, to be developed, while partnerships with commercial vendors, such as the IU/Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement, have made software packages available at low cost.

"Nobody of IU’s size has this anywhere in the world, as far as I know—certainly not in the United States," McRobbie says. "I think we’ve shown the world how to do it right, how to invest in a way that you guarantee for the foreseeable future that everyone will have the IT environment needed to do their work."

McRobbie sees similar potential results from cooperation in IU research arenas. He notes that federal funding for scientific research has increased dramatically, putting some big money within reach of universities. For example, the National Science Foundation’s FY2003 budget request is $5 billion, with a Congressional bill pending that will increase it to nearly $10 billion in the next few years. The National Institutes of Health’s FY2003 budget request is $27.3 million, a 16.7 percent increase over FY2002.

"I want the research office to mobilize the university’s resources to go after the big projects that will be funded with this new money," McRobbie says. To succeed, he points out, "we will need to pursue (grants) as a united university. That means aggregating our research expertise and talent and working together."