Research Optimization
Growth without growing. The magic bean. Doing more with what you’ve got. Institutions are searching for innovative ways to optimize STEM research productivity within existing footprints. Trying to figure out how to accommodate growth, advance strategic imperatives, drive collaborative interdisciplinary research, make leading investments, and update infrastructure.
Meaningful growth and organizational planning can get stuck in the realities of being clogged by physical constraints. To loosen them up, this problem typically gets narrowed to the domain of space and facilities planners. After a cursory review, usually they find little or no unassigned research space that blocks most first tier options. Aging building systems limit renovation opportunities and space use, making lab fit-outs more costly or simply not practical. Swing space to enable renovations of the space types required are often not available (or seen as too difficult to make available). The way designers are taught to approach this problem is to build new space, swing into it, clear out as much of the old as possible, and then renovate (or demolish) what's left. Tried and true, easy to do. But this old stand-by can miss the point. Expansion is not necessarily optimization. And sometimes expansion is not in the cards.
A STEM optimization plan discovers and maximizes latent efficiencies to increase capacity and capability. Creating the possibility for more productivity. Working with what you’ve got requires a deeper dive into enabling research teams at the project level. The day-to-day interaction level. Finding connections that may not be obvious. Creating pathways to guide research priority. Developing strategies for mid-career boosts. Filling gaps, known and unknown, be it with new collaborators or technical support. And being smarter about equipment - oh, equipment…(hybrid use - the other magic bean). And doing all of this while still providing the right amount of “air” in the system to provide the ability to test, experiment, and respond to new opportunities.
Insightful consolidation planning and careful sequencing can create more effective collaborations and sharing (the third magic bean). Consolidation has an image problem, it’s not just about blind efficiency. It’s about building teams; making them stronger, and more connected. Consolidation can find and release potential. But projects like this can get hung up when decision makers face front line concerns over the disruption of research continuity. At face value, it can be seen as counter to the mission. And sometimes that can be true; moving research teams just to make way isn’t consolidation. It’s just moving without purpose. The same with an oversimplified co-location strategy, putting seemingly similar work together, sometimes is not worth the cost or disruption. Which is the difference between space planning and research optimization (this goes for teaching optimization as well). A good integrated optimization plan proposes what to do and how to do it. You have to get really good at lab activation to make it work, but it can be done. And may just be the difference between doing it and not. Excellent operations (internal or outsourced) making strategic planning possible…the opposite of what most people think. Sometimes you need a big swing, and if possible and can be funded, can make optimization easier. But other times, a consistent incremental approach guided by the right optimization plan is how projects get done and organizations move forward.
Dynamic institutions need levers, ones they know how to pull, not rigid prescriptive solutions when adapting to growth needs and research opportunities. An actionable optimization plan provides strategic direction, guides incremental investment, and creates options.