Submissions opened on Oct. 7 for Binghamton University faculty to present their proposals for BU’s sixth Transdisciplinary Area of Excellence (TAE).

In 2012, the University launched a new initiative to begin investing more heavily in cross-disciplinary research. The initiative includes hiring approximately 150 tenure-track faculty members by 2017 and steering committees to guide the hiring process. TAE steering committees, which consist of 10 to 20 faculty and administrators per area, recommend disciplines that would benefit from new faculty to fulfill research needs.

“The new TAE will be an area in which we already have significant faculty strength, so it won’t result in large-scale hiring in the area,” said Provost Donald Nieman. “However, we will undoubtedly hire additional faculty to fill gaps and strengthen the area.”

Originally, there were five TAEs: health sciences, smart energy, citizenship, rights and cultural belonging, material and visual worlds and sustainable communities. Each TAE is composed of a group of faculty looking to share their scholarly expertise and to help guide research. All faculty members are invited to voluntarily join any of the TAEs, provided their research is related to that area’s focus.

Carl Lipo, a BU professor of anthropology and director of environmental studies, is a core hire for the sustainable communities TAE. Core hires are tenured professors hired to do research in an area that will both benefit a specific TAE and enhance the University’s research reputation.

“The idea of the TAEs is that they are going to tackle problems that cannot be solved by one discipline,” Lipo said.

Focusing on energy research, the smart energy TAE is a branch of study that has experienced an increased degree of attention worldwide in recent years. Wayne Jones, the smart energy steering committee chair and the chair of the chemistry department, said that it focuses on energy generation, storage and efficiency.

“The smart energy TAE is very well developed,” Jones said. “It is made up of a group of people with similar long-term objectives and different strategies.”

The health sciences TAE concentrates on biomedical engineering, industrial engineering, nursing and healthcare. Research conducted will aim not only to create new medical advances, but also to help increase the accessibility of these innovations for patients.

Research on how objects and images impact societies over time is conducted by the material and visual worlds TAE. This TAE aims to study the connections between human thought and human artifacts.

The citizenship, rights and cultural belonging TAE seeks to conduct research on topics ranging from law to race relations. It examines the ever-changing landscape of peoples around the world, and how claims to rights and citizenship are challenged over time.

Lastly, the sustainable communities TAE studies the differences and commonalities between communities. Pamela Mischen, the sustainable communities steering committee chair and BU public administration professor, said that it also works to devise solutions to social and economic problems that plague neighborhoods.

“Our TAE is a very practice-oriented area of research,” Mischen said. “We are very focused on how we can use our budget to create more sustainable communities.”

The new TAE, whatever its theme, will be in an area where there is a passion from faculty in many different fields of study. The University is looking for faculty proposals that address broad, collaborative areas of research. The application indicates that strong proposals should be made by at least three faculty members from a minimum of two different schools.

“The proposals will be reviewed by a broad-based faculty committee that will make recommendations to me and the vice president for research, Bahgat Sammakia,” Nieman said. “We will make the final decision, in consultation with President [Harvey] Stenger.”

Proposal submissions are due by Dec. 15. The final decision will be announced March 31, 2017.