ORI Research Administration and Funding

Commitment to research preeminence is evident across all ORI units. ORI’s Integrated Support Services Center (ISSC) functions similarly to college-level research administration groups but with added complexity due to working across multiple OUCs, supporting over 30 active clients from multiple campus units, including those reporting to the Chancellor, Provost, and several Vice Chancellors. In FY25, this unit assisted with 169 proposals valued at $62 million total, and its clients received 154 awards totaling $54 million. This places the ISSC 3rd in award funding, 4th in awards received, and 5th in proposals submitted across the university. This team manages research administration for an extensive list of units beyond ORI units, underscoring its significant responsibility for NC State’s interdisciplinary research activities, which are inherently more complex.

System Engineering Research Center of the Department of Defense

NC State University has joined the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), a Department of Defense-affiliated national network. This collaboration highlights NC State’s expertise in systems engineering research — particularly in developing trusted, field-ready complex systems — and positions the university to contribute significantly to an impactful national research ecosystem alongside over 20 other leading universities.

Strategic development, proposal development and program launch

ORI identifies, promotes, and builds interdisciplinary teams to pursue large extramural funding opportunities. NC State faculty secured significant external funding in FY25 for innovative, interdisciplinary research projects that advance national priorities across power electronics, quantum computing, environmental health, sustainable agriculture, and genetics and genomics. Key awards are highlighted below:

UNC System Office-Recognized Centers and Institutes

ORI oversees the research, service, and educational activities of NC State’s 41 Centers and Institutes that are officially recognized by the UNC System. In FY25, key accomplishments included:

• The formal establishment of a new Center: the Center of Excellence for Regulatory Science in Agriculture (CERSA). CERSA’s mission is to be a national and international resource for furthering excellence in agricultural regulatory science. CERSA focuses on advancing agricultural regulatory science through education, workforce development, stakeholder engagement, and collaborative research.
• Periodic comprehensive reviews of: The NC Sea Grant Program, the Water Resources Research Institute, the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, the Institute for Emerging Issues, the Center for Educational Informatics, and the Ergonomics Center of North Carolina.

Shared Core Research Facilities

The institutional investments in the research and operational capabilities of the three ORI-led Research Cores — the Cellular and Molecular Imaging Facility (CMIF), Genomic Sciences Laboratory (GSL), and METRIC — continue to enable and catalyze research activities within NC State and beyond. In FY25, 215 different research groups from more than 40 departments across NC State and over 75 external user groups, ranging from regional and national academic institutions to small and large companies, have leveraged the instrumentation and services of ORI’s shared cores to bolster their research activities.

• The investment in the Plant Genotyping Facility, in the Plant Sciences Building, has been instrumental in developing and optimizing new protocols that have led to the isolation of high-quality DNA from a variety of crops, including maize, blueberry, cucumber, ash, redbud, and pine trees.
• Researchers in METRIC remain active in the field of PFAS detection and quantification, providing needed technical expertise to better understand the impacts of these environmental contaminants. Dr. Jeff Enders and Dr. Rebecca Weed contributed to several papers over the past year and were involved in community outreach activities. In collaboration with the Center for Environmental and Health Effects of PFAS and several community partners scattered throughout the state, PFAS levels were quantified in drinking water samples. Notably, instrumentation within METRIC was utilized to identify novel PFAS, one of which had not been previously reported in the U.S. at the time of publication. The manuscript, “Non-Targeted PFAS Suspect Screening and Quantification of Drinking Water Samples Collected through Community Engaged Research in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River Basin,” was published in the journal Toxics. This project was also highlighted in the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences’ environmental public health newsletter.