Sept. 27, 2023

Dear faculty, staff, students and administrators,

The UAF R1 Steering Committee invites you to fill out the following survey to share your ideas and submit nominations for working groups.

Survey link

One of UAF’s strategic goals is to achieve R1 research status by 2027. R1 is the highest classification of research activity defined by the Carnegie Classification system. Being an R1 university would place UAF within the top 4% of U.S. universities with respect to research.

UAF has consistently ranked as an R2 (high research activity) university and as of 2021 was only nine (out of 280 R1 and R2 universities) positions away from being R1. In 2020, as part of UAF’s Strategic Plan, a committee of UAF faculty, staff and students identified mechanisms to help UAF achieve R1 status while maintaining UAF’s core values. This report can be found on the UAF Strategic Goals website.

This past spring, with University of Alaska Board of Regents encouragement, Chancellor White revitalized this goal and formed UAF’s R1 Steering Committee. This committee is now recruiting members for working groups that will work toward refining, prioritizing, and implementing the proposed mechanisms to help UAF achieve R1 research status.

If you are interested in volunteering your time or ideas to help UAF achieve our goal of R1 research, or if you know someone who would be an asset to one of our teams, we encourage you to please complete the above survey prior to Oct. 6.

We are hoping to accept between 5-7 people per working group for a total of  approximately 65 unique UAF faculty, staff, student and administrator perspectives from across all campuses on the various R1 committees. Thank you in advance for your time and service to UAF!

Sincerely,

UAF R1 Steering Committee