Meet The Deans: Dr. Mark R. McLellan
By Jessica Magnani, IFAS Research Reporter.
Whether he’s speaking to industry, working with faculty or partnering with regulators, Dr. Mark McLellan, IFAS Dean for Research and Director of the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, remains committed to advancing and facilitating basic and applied research.
“I am still very close to the science even though I am no longer at the bench top,” McLellan explained. “In administration you live through the successes of your faculty. Without their discovery, their innovation and their applications we have nothing.”
Many of the Dean’s goals for IFAS emphasize the need to cultivate a fertile environment for faculty research, for multi-disciplinary work, and for increased communication with private industry. As a result, he acknowledges that part of his role in administration involves minimizing bureaucracy in order to enable faculty at IFAS to be more successful.
“I think every faculty member at every institution is frustrated with the levels of bureaucracy that accompany an academic institution,” McLellan explained.
Over the years, bureaucracy has only become more complicated and exacting, particularly in dealing with the federal requirements. In addition to lengthy, detailed applications, federal research grants often require adherence to extensive federal rules, progress reports, and audits. They can also impose additional regulations on the research itself.
“One of the things administration can do is be mindful of that bureaucracy and take care of as much of it as possible,” McLellan said.
Transferring review and selection processes from IFAS administration to department leadership is one of the ways that the Dean hopes to reduce bureaucracy at the university level. For example, federal CRIS projects and proposals that had previously been subject to review at the IFAS administration level are now managed through a review process within individual departments.
“There is no better person than the department chair in the particular discipline to oversee that process, judge the quality of the project, and help that faculty member improve on a project,” McLellan said. “Local decision-making and guidance empowers the unit leader and hopefully speeds up the entire process.”
Another strategy that McLellan’s administration is employing to empower faculty is the allocation of targeted funds to sponsor faculty gathering preliminary data and/or conducting innovative projects with a high risk of success. The 2006-2007 Research Innovation Grants awarded last month offered recipients the flexibility to research areas which, because of their embryonic status, are not yet attractive for federal funding. Sponsoring preliminary research will thus enable faculty to attract industry and/or federal partnerships and grants. Other funded projects are discovery-oriented and could potentially revolutionize specific disciplines or fields.
McLellan’s responsiveness to the needs of fellow scientists is perhaps the result of his own experiences at the ‘bench top.’ He began his career as a food scientist specializing in the unit operations and processing systems for foods, as well as in areas such as storage, packaging and filtration. At Cornell University’s Institute of Food Science, where he was chairman and professor of the Department of Food Science and Technology, McLellan worked on projects targeting clarification systems for beverages and studies attempting to increase the safety of juice products.
Before joining IFAS in 2005, McLellan was the director of Texas A&M University’s Institute of Food Science and Engineering and director of the Food and Protein Research and Development Center.
Although he initially started out at the University of Massachusetts as a pre-med student, McLellan admits that he became enchanted with the idea of research on something as basic to human survival as food.
“Everyone seemed to be working on projects that were pretty clearly both in basic work as well as in applied work,” he said. “I just sort of fell in love with it. What we discovered had great applications.”
McLellan’s commitment to enhancing the relationship between basic research and applied technology remains central to his vision for IFAS. His plan to incorporate faculty in setting long-term goals for IFAS will enable administrators to identify changing faculty and industry needs.
“One of the things that we will be doing is taking the IFAS research enterprise through a visioning process,” McLellan explained. “This is different than strategic planning; it truly is a process where we will ask our faculty to look at the state of the science and help us understand the trends and factors that are going to modify our world of agriculture and life sciences. This process will help us define the future of research for IFAS and hence the future shape of the organization.”
Of particular importance, McLellan said, is that IFAS continue to be engaging, responsive, and relevant in the scientific community. And while he notes that the visioning process is critical, he also explains that partnering with the private sector is crucial for the future of IFAS research.
“I’ve always felt that the university system must be engaged with the private sector,” McLellan said. “The resources are so great and the opportunities for collaborative work so strong that we cannot afford to overlook them.”
In fact, university-industry partnerships have increased since the 1980s and the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act, which altered the rules governing university management of intellectual property. Most importantly, it gave universities ownership of patents arising from federal research grants, which led to more rapid dissemination of new technologies. The National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 provided further incentives for these partnerships by reducing anti-trust penalties against private firms collaborating with universities.
“We can really have an impact on the community even though we’re thinking of our science,” McLellan said.
He adds that private industry can function as a compass or guide for scientists deeply engaged in basic research by highlighting social trends and needs. Industry partnerships are also particularly important in order to commercialize research results for the public’s benefit. Because universities are not in the business of producing and selling products, private partners are necessary to bridge the gap between research and applied technology.
“Commercialization is very important. By readying our science so that it can be applied in the private sector, we essentially enable it to be implemented well,” he said. “When you do this, you create real change through available technologies to the public.”
In addition to increasing dissemination of new technologies, industry partnerships can also increase university visibility, create additional funding opportunities, and attract talented faculty. Collaboration can also potentially increase local and regional development. Moreover, the sharing of knowledge and research among partners can lead to new opportunities for scientific discovery.
At UF/IFAS royalties generated from such partnerships are often used to fund additional research. “That is particularly true regarding our varietal releases. Seventy percent of the royalties generated by our new varietals come right back into the program itself,” McLellan said.
Another strategy that will foster growth and discovery within IFAS, the Dean explained, is encouragement and support of multi- and interdisciplinary teams.
“We are facing some of the most challenging scientific issues that we have ever faced,” McLellan said. “I believe that the answer to that is in highly integrated, multi-discipline teams.”
In fact, many of the scientists that make up IFAS’ 16 academic departments and 13 research and education centers already engage in multi-disciplinary work. The Dean, however, hopes to increase this type of work not just at the level of individual projects, but also at program and/or department levels.
The Emerging Pathogens Institute, for instance, joins departments and faculty working with diagnostics, treatment, prediction, prevention and management of microbial pathogen-associated diseases of humans, animals and plants. In addition to IFAS, participating colleges include Dentistry, Engineering, Veterinary Medicine, Medicine, and Liberal Arts and Sciences.
McLellan explained that IFAS administration is also working on a number of different initiatives, such as a foods for health approach to existing research programs, a better management practices initiative in agriculture, and a bio-energy initiative.
“We are capitalizing on our own science, bringing others to the table, and presenting a very aggressive outreach to the private sector at the same time that we are seeking external funding,” he said.
In addition to his role in IFAS, McLellan chairs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Food Advisory Committee, an appointment that continues through June 2008. He also recently finished his term as president of the Institute of Food Technologists.
“Coming up to speed in Florida has taken a lot of effort, but it has also been exciting,” he said. Now that he has his administrative team in place, McLellan looks forward to having more time to enjoy Florida.
