Executive Vice President for Research

Rice University, among the nation’s most ambitious and renowned private research universities and a long-standing member of the American Association of Universities (AAU), seeks a transformative and visionary scholar-leader and deft administrator to serve as its next Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR). As the University's chief research officer, the EVPR oversees the institution’s internal and external research enterprise and serves as chief advocate for Rice’s scholarly and societal impact locally, nationally, and internationally. The EVPR will set the strategic direction and vision in close partnership with the Provost while collaborating with other members of the University’s senior leadership team as a member of the President’s Cabinet. The Office of Innovation, the Office of Technology Transfer, the Office of Research Integrity, the Office of Sponsored Projects, and the Animal Resources Facility are all housed with and managed by the Office of Research. The EVPR also has responsibility for the Office of Research Security. The EVPR will work closely with the deans, faculty, and staff throughout the institution to strengthen the University’s research and innovation infrastructure and propel Rice’s research productivity to new heights. The EVPR will join the Rice community at an exciting inflection point in the University’s history, as President Reginald DesRoches seeks to evolve the institution through his ambitious strategic plan, Momentous, all while devoting considerable resources to transforming Rice into a center of impactful and broad-based interdisciplinary research while retaining a deep commitment to pedagogy and the student experience.

Rice is in the midst of ambitious plans to grow the student body by approximately 30% while significantly growing the faculty to maintain a historically low student-to-faculty ratio while adding talent in key areas that are aligned with the strategic plan and will elevate the research mission. 

Centrally located in America’s most diverse city with the 3rd largest number of Fortune 500 companies in the country, the energy capital, and proximate to the Texas Medical Center — the world’s largest academic medical complex — Rice University is a tier-one research university dedicated to scholarship addressing the world’s most urgent problems, rigorous undergraduate and graduate education, and professional training in selected disciplines. Rice’s community comprises over 1,000 faculty who are devoted to the instruction and training of approximately 4,800 undergraduate students and 4,100 graduate and professional students across eight schools of academic study. In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked Rice 18^th among national universities and 7^th for undergraduate education. Forbes recently ranked Rice as ninth among America’s top colleges and put Rice on its list of “New Ivies.” U.S. News also ranked six graduate programs in the top 10 and 22 graduate programs in the top 25 among their peers in 2024. Rice faculty conduct world-class research across a breadth of disciplines and numerous research groups, centers, and institutes and have grown sponsored research awards significantly over the past few years, bringing in $218 million in sponsored research in FY2024. The preponderance of Rice’s research funding derives from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, corporate partners, and various foundations. The University has recently made key capacity-building investments to expand its funding base and revenue streams under the next EVPR, who will promote the development of new projects, contracts, and grants at an unprecedented scale and who will advocate for the resources, infrastructure, and staff needed to catalyze and sustain this growth. A key goal for the next EVPR will be to expand the agencies, foundations, and companies that support and partner with Rice’s research.

As a cabinet-level position reporting directly to the President, the Executive Vice President for Research will work closely and collaboratively with key University leaders to advance Rice’s research mission while supporting faculty in their individual and collective research aspirations across disciplines. Together with the University’s communications and federal relations team, the EVPR will take on a robust external role in promoting the University’s research capacity with external partners, including federal funding agencies in Washington, D.C., federally-funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) with whom the University may be in consultation, state agencies in Austin, TX, other academic institutions aligned with Rice’s overarching research goals, and major industrial partners. To aggressively grow and diversify Rice’s federal funding portfolio, the EVPR is expected to be deeply connected with Washington, D.C., and the national capital region and will position Rice more prominently before external funding agencies. The EVPR will have a deep understanding of how IP, policies, and funds influence or constrain a future-oriented and pioneering academic research enterprise and will make tactical and strategic investments to position Rice ahead of its peers in terms of its scalability and its highest scholarly ambitions.

Vijay Saraswat is leading this search with Stephen Kalogeras and Elizabeth Arvanitis.