Elevating Every Mind in Research
The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) supports research, scholarship, and creative work across all three campuses. We do this by launching initiatives and providing essential services that help researchers succeed.
Our goal is to actively create enabling contexts that expand access, and create opportunities to address complex global challenges and improve lives.
To fulfill our mission to catalyze, support, and safeguard U-M research – and our vision to serve the public good – we are building a dynamic environment fueled by bold ideas, a wide range of talents, and many ways of thinking. When everyone in our research community has the support to contribute fully, we unlock innovation and create solutions that make a lasting difference in Michigan and beyond.
Moving from Words to Action
True progress in, expanding access, and creating opportunities for research that addresses complex global challenges and improves lives takes more than good intentions. It requires deliberate actions that build fairness, opportunity, and collaboration into every aspect of our mission. OVPR is dedicated to turning these values into practical steps that strengthen research, broaden access to resources, and increase the university’s positive impact on the world.
Guiding Principles
DEDICATION (to our mission) is the driving force behind our pursuit of excellence, anchoring our commitment to supporting and catalyzing research that changes lives and improves the human condition. Our dedication ensures that we uphold the highest standards of academic excellence, integrity, and respect. It compels us to develop research policies and practices that honor the dignity of every staff member, scholar, scientist, artist, and innovator within our community.
EMPATHY (for all we serve) is at the heart of our research enterprise, which seeks to be both excellent and responsible. Empathy requires recognizing the challenge of limited access to and past exclusion from research opportunities, resources, and career advancement. It calls us to work to actively create enabling contexts that ensure that every researcher and staff member — regardless of background, identity, or institutional standing—has the support needed to contribute, innovate, lead and thrive.
IMPACT and INSPIRATION fuel innovation and discovery. In OVPR, we often draw inspiration from our research community’s unique talents and stories and celebrate the creativity that emerges from our collective experiences. We are inspired by fostering the generation of new ideas and opportunities and ensuring that every member of our research community has the confidence and support to pursue them. Impact is the ultimate measure of the reach of research, driving us to create solutions that deliver tangible benefits to communities, industries, and policy-makers, ensuring every breakthrough contributes meaningfully to a better future.