EAGER - An Experimental Approach to Formulate Research Questions

Today's societal challenges are complex and compelling. To increase the effectiveness of STEM research in addressing these challenges, it is essential to formulate appropriately significant research questions. This collaborative project from the SUNY System Administration and SUNY at Buffalo seeks to pilot a new platform -- Germination Space -- for aiding investigators to construct and define transformative research questions. The investigators will test a repetitive process with defined steps: question formulation, reflection, and redefinition. Participation will be open to all faculty members, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students in the SUNY system. This open-door approach should facilitate involvement of a diverse spectrum of participants, given SUNY's strong history in recruiting individuals from underrepresented and underserved groups into STEM fields. If successful, this study may develop a new approach that will lead to transformative research to address key societal challenges. If this project identifies underlying principles for formulating open and transformative research questions, the results could be applied more broadly by academic institutions to formulate strategies and innovative organizational and program structures to effectively stimulate risk-taking and impact-driven research activities. The platform to be developed -- Germination Space -- will consist of a multiple-iteration process including formulating, reflecting upon, and redefining research questions. Researchers will be guided to examine their research questions, challenge fundamental assumptions, and leverage existing knowledge and solutions in other disciplines, ultimately arriving at highly transformative research questions. Faculty and students from across SUNY campuses will be invited to participate in this project. Research will be conducted to understand the underlying principles of formulating open and transformative research questions. It is expected that these principles will inform both individual approaches to asking questions, and the social and institutional arrangements that can serve to catalyze individual explorations. Delineating underlying principles will be an essential prerequisite for effective scaling of the Germination Space process.