Bringing Many Voices Together to Seek Solutions to Society’s Challenges.

Launched in fiscal year 2022, Iowa State’s Research & Innovation Roundtables (RIR) are designed to foster collaborative team development to identify novel solutions to complex societal challenges.

Administered by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR), the RIR program is intended to bring together many different voices from across campus to share varying perspectives and areas of expertise leading to self-assembly of multidisciplinary teams that compete for Iowa State Strategic Plan Presidential “jump start”and/or Presidential Interdisciplinary Research funding.

Each fiscal and academic year new roundtables focus on issues of significant scope and impact that are also key areas of research strength for the university. The inaugural program in FY22 addressed the topics of:

• Environmental and Economic Security;
• Agriculture Cybersecurity; and
• Leveraging Iowa State University and University of Iowa strengths for a Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Innovation Hub.

FY23 RIR Program

The first Research & Innovation Roundtable of FY23 focused on the Climate Smart issue and focused on topics and research opportunities ranging from circular economies for climate to green energy production to climate smart community design and social justice to sustainable and regenerative agriculture.

Nearly 60 Iowa State faculty participated in the roundtable on November 29, 2022. Each was required to share a one-minute presentation describing their background and expert contributions in context of the overarching Climate Smart issue. The supporting PowerPoint presentation from the roundtable, including all faculty-submitted slides, can be viewed by the Iowa State community by clicking here.

In addition, on March 10, 2023, a total of 75 faculty participated in the RIR focused on Healthy Iowa — enhancing the health of all that live and grow in Iowa, from plants to animals to people.