Dear list,

Only 34 offices responded to the questions about the year your
research office was established. The results really show us nothing
because the list lacks data from many of the top 100 research
universities and also records few responses from HBCUs (Meharry?,
Morehouse?, Howard?, Drew?, Jacson State?). The most evident
conclusion is that centralized research administration offices are a
new phenomenon among Ph.D. and Master's degree granting institutions
as those were the institutions that responded the most.

After examining the following data, please respond if
you work for a top 100 research university (Harvard?, The Ohio State
University?, University of Chicago?, Vanderbilt?, Many Land Grant
Institutions?) or an HBCU or any other institution that didn't
respond, and give me the name of your institution, the name of your
research office, the approximate year it was established, and your
primary reporting responsibility -- at xxxxxx@spa.msstate.edu. I will
update this data as we go. Thanks to all who responded so far.

Year Established                Number of Responses

40's                                     2
50's                                     1
60's                                     7
70's                                     6
80's                                     7
90's                                    11

All opinions and interpretations of this data are welcome. I believe
when we correlate a better data set with economic trends of each
corresponding decade, we may be able to draw some interesting
conclusions about our profession.

Tim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tim Atkinson
Sponsored Programs Administrator
Sponsored Programs Administration
Mississippi State University
Box 6156, 305 Bowen Hall
Mississippi State, MS 39762
Phone: 601-325-7396
FAX:   601-325-3803
xxxxxx@spa.msstate.edu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"When everything seems to be set to show me off as intelligent,
the fool I always keep hidden takes over all that I say." -Pablo Neruda