The university created the GERB to develop and implement a process to prioritize specific research and creative activity initiatives to recommend to President Roderick J. McDavis and Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl for strategic investment of central funds consistent with the Graduate Education and Research Academic Priorities established in Vision Ohio.

The GERB looked for programs with existing strengths in research and graduate education that could raise the national prominence of the university's graduate programs as well as compete for external funding sources, Krendl said.

From a pool of six finalists, the GERB chose the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English and the Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute, which includes faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Russ College of Engineering and Technology.

"The GERB committee considered these programs to be the ones that best met our institutional priorities and can help strengthen our national reputation," Krendl said. "Though the level of funding committed is more modest than we had hoped when the process began, it does offer base support that will enhance these programs over time."

The Creative Writing Program will use the new $131,000 in base funding to offer an additional doctoral student stipend, increase stipend amounts for other graduate students and fund a visiting professor. Fifteen to 20 graduate students are enrolled in the program annually.

Though the program has a national reputation for fiction, poetry and non-fiction writing, low stipends have turned some good prospective graduate students away, said Stocker Professor of Creative Writing Darrell Spencer, who was instrumental in the GERB proposal.

"We will increase our graduate pool and be competitive with the best schools," Spencer said.

The visiting professor position also will aid the program, he added, by offering students more diverse insight into their work. There currently are eight faculty members in the Creative Writing Program, which was founded in 1964.

The Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute (NQPI) has received $169,000 in new base funding. Established in 2001, the institute includes 26 faculty members and about 50 graduate students who conduct research on how matter behaves at the nanoscale, which can help scientists and engineers develop the next generation of technologies that are smaller, more powerful and more efficient than traditional devices.

Art Smith, director of the NQPI and associate professor of physics and astronomy, said the institute members will meet within the next few weeks to determine how to maximize the impact of the new funding. The institute is considering the purchase of a helium liquefier -- needed to cool microscopes to the temperatures required to study atoms at the nanoscale -- as well as hire a business manager and a research technician to assist faculty researchers in their work.

"The GERB funding will allow us to make strategic investments," Smith said. "It also will serve as an important resource as new needs arise and priorities evolve with time."

The GERB was chaired by Sergio Ulloa, professor of physics and astronomy and chair of the Council for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity, and Jim Rankin, interim vice president for research. The committee included deans, faculty and administrators from all colleges.

"We had some good proposals, and it was a hard decision to make," Ulloa said. "We appreciate the hard work put into writing these substantial and well thought-out proposals."