More than 100 scholars from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss building research capacity at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) during the Dr. N. Joyce Payne Research Center (Payne Center) and HBCU Transformation Project Faculty Research Seminar.
The conference focused on building research capacity for HBCUs aiming to achieve Research-1 (R1) status in the Carnegie Classifications, with an emphasis on grants, contracts and dissemination.
Dr. Harry L. Williams, president & CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), provided opening remarks. Dr. M.C. Brown II, executive director of the Payne Center, led the opening session with a conversation that explored the current research landscape, opportunities for HBCUs to engage with national priorities, and how TMCF supports institutions in building research capacity for long-term advancement.
“Gathering members of academia together in the name of advancing HBCU research capacity was a fruitful and collaborative endeavor,” Brown said. “We look forward to our institutions utilizing the information they learned and leveraging the relationships they forged at the conference to advance their campuses.”
Other session topics for the two-day event included how to navigate research pathways; what R1 is and why it matters; navigating the new Carnegie Classifications; non-traditional and defense funding pathways; intellectual property rights and revenue residuals; and collaborative networking.
Presenters hailed from institutions such as the University of South Florida; Morgan State University; the American Council on Education; Prairie View A&M University; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University; Morehouse College; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the National Science Portal, Air Force Office of Scientific Research; and the Southern University and A&M College System. Attendees also heard from TMCF founder and Payne Center namesake Dr. N. Joyce Payne during the opening remarks on day two.
