Director Jennifer Dill’s message for summer 2011

Even before OTREC was established, we have been preparing ourselves to compete – anticipating the day we would be required to do so for continued federal funding. That day came one Friday afternoon in June, when Peter Appel, head of DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration, sent an email to university transportation center (UTC) directors informing us that every center would need to compete. There are currently 59 centers and the email indicated that at the end of the competition there would be 20, most likely consortia of several universities.

About 10 days later, OTREC hosted the annual meeting of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC), where around 150 center directors and staff listened to Appel take questions about the impending process and shared their concerns. The need to establish new partnerships became clear, though an attempt at “speed dating” among centers was a little awkward. Several weeks passed and, at the end of July, RITA issued the request for proposals for the new UTC program. That RFP sets forth a program that will fund 10 regional centers (one in each federal region), 10 “Tier 1” centers, and two transit-focused centers, all at $3.5 million. Universities can apply for more than one center, but will not be chosen to lead more than one center. The applications are due October 26; details are at utc.dot.gov.

The competition helps address some of the concerns about the UTC program voiced by members of Congress and others within the transportation profession. The DOT wants centers to be more focused and to clearly align with departmental priorities. Rather than a having a center at a single university covering a topics ranging from transit-oriented development to the qualities of asphalt, why not have a center the focuses in depth on one topic, such as safety, that includes top researchers from several universities? That model makes a lot of sense, and is consistent with how OTREC currently operates. Other aspects of the new program, such as an emphasis on peer review and collaboration, fit well with what we’ve been doing. But we certainly don’t plan to rest on our laurels. We’ll be working with our university partners, as well as organizational partners, to develop some new ideas and expand on ones we have only begun to initiate. We’re optimistic about our chances because of the great work we’ve been doing for six years.

One last note: this competition is for Federal Fiscal Year 2011 money. For most centers, that money would have covered the year starting October 1, 2011, just a couple months from now. Because of the timing of OTREC’s funding, we are one year behind. Our last year of funding from the original grant starts this fall. We have also budgeted a “close-out” year, 2012-13, that would cover administrative costs of finishing up our original six years of projects. So, we are on firm financial ground for the next year, with a full slate of new projects starting up. And, we hope that we won’t need to perform that close-out year!