In 2001, genome sciences at Duke consisted of a few faculty making national reputations by working magic in old facilities. Now the work consists of dozens of faculty working in five schools and supported by four programs and a new Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, itself spread across five buildings, two of which are new.
Similarly, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute was in its infancy in 2001, looking to provide a home where humanities scholars from across the university could collaborate on challenging issues. Nearly five years ” and 87 research projects involving nearly 50 faculty members ” later, the institute has carved out a significant role in the university's plans for the humanities.
The blueprint for making these two disparate but bold leaps can be found in 2001's Building on Excellence, Duke's current strategic plan. The money that turned that strategic plan into reality came, in large part, from the Strategic Investment Plan (SIP).
When Building on Excellence was being written, Duke was in the middle of the hugely successful Campaign for Duke, which ultimately raised more than $2.3 billion in gifts and pledges. One of the pressures on the strategic plan was to show donors that the university had thought hard and wisely about how the money should be spent.
Now, with a new strategic plan in the works, Provost Peter Lange said the experience of the past few years shows that an effective funding mechanism can ensure that written plans get translated into action.
"SIP was critical to our ability to act on the strategic plan," Lange said. "It didn't make sense any longer to create strategic priorities without identifying available sources of revenue to fund them."
SIP was created collaboratively by deans and faculty from across the university working with key leaders in the administration. It in-cluded a coordinated package of investments and funding streams from both school and central resources, including fund raising, long-term debt and cash reserves. Altogether, the plan called for investments totaling $727 million; actual investments have slightly exceeded this total.
These investments have launched new initiatives and facilities and created a model for how Duke can fund interdisciplinary initiatives. The availability of central strategic funds to complement school resources, leverage fundraising opportunities and help support long-term debt has been the operational linchpin of the Strategic Investment Plan.
As Duke prepares to enter a new cycle of strategic planning, university officials say the SIP has shown this approach to be an essential part of the overall process.
"I think it has been fabulous," Lange said. "Prior to Building on Excellence and the availability of central strategic funds, we had very little capacity to move the university quickly into areas we thought were important. The strategic plan enabled us to identify priorities, but SIP was important for making these credible and allowing us to deliver on them.
"The bottom line is that the university's underlying financial structure is decentralized and hence tends to discourage cross-school initiatives," Lange added. "The flow of central strategic funds to support SIP and Building on Excellence reversed that and allowed us to build a culture of cooperation. It allows deans to see a financial reward for such efforts and to get resources for major school or interdisciplinary intellectual priorities that they already held or that are developed through strategic planning at the school or university level."
With the exception of capital projects, SIP support is seed money, rather than a long-term commitment, Lange said. SIP-supported programs get a decreasing amount of money over five years and are expected to be self- or school-financed at the end of the period. They are phased out if they are unable to attract sufficient support.
Nearly all of the university's most significant initiatives in the last five years received some central strategic support funds.
In addition to genome sciences and the Franklin Institute, SIP funds have supported the study of child and health policy issues; the Information Sciences + Information Studies program; the Smith Arts Warehouse and the larger effort to integrate arts into academics; photonics; global change; and the related fields of brain sciences, neuroengineering and computational modeling. In addition, central strategic funds supplemented other sources to advance internationalization, improving the faculty, and the numerous major capital projects that were called for in Building on Excellence.
Some of the initiatives have changed dramatically, in part because of SIP funds. What started as the Center for Environmental Solutions attracted additional interest and became the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions ” the effort to make Duke a national leader in key environmental policy debates.
However, one sign of the SIP's effectiveness in transforming Duke's strategic planning can be seen where efforts fell short, said Cathy Davidson, vice provost of interdisciplinary studies. The failures show how Duke now has the resources to allow itself to think big, even if some initiatives don't come to fruition, she said.
"The more daring one is, the more likelihood it is that some of the plans will fail," Davidson said. "And that's happened. But the only reason why you would put money like this aside is to try things that wouldn't normally bubble up from traditional university sources. We've used this money to challenge turf and to get people from across the university to work together to build new centers of excellence. Our willingness to be bold has served its purpose."
At the end of the first five-year cycle, one of the biggest questions facing SIP planners is how to continue funding when the SIP money vanishes. Davidson said that while there has been a review of what should go forward, deans and other academic officials have also been willing to commit their own resources to successful ventures.
"What happens when the initial SIP money runs out is always a complicated process," Davidson said. "Rarely will external grants be available to pay for interdisciplinary programming or academic infrastructure. But in a recent meeting I attended on SIP financing, the whole thing was settled in about 15 minutes. The deans were eager to participate in cross-school initiatives, and they agreed upon their relative stake in these initiatives quite efficiently because they had already seen the value of these strategic programs at work."
The money for central strategic funds to support SIP comes from several sources, said Jim Roberts, executive vice provost for finance and administration. They all involve resources not assigned to any school and are based substantially on investment strategies developed by Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, working with the Duke University Management Company (DUMAC).
SIP, with its emphasis on programs identified in the strategic plan, serves a different function than other centrally administered funds, Roberts added.
One such program, the Provost's Common Fund, covers one-year awards of $40,000-$50,000 to provide seed money for early-stage interdisciplinary projects. These initiatives may later be considered for including in the next strategic plan.
A second fund, the President's Discretionary Fund, finances projects identified by the president ” such as the Women's Initiative ” that were not specifically contemplated in the strategic plan.