MCG Named Among Top 15 Best Places to Work in Academia in the U.S.

10/29/2009

Author - Medical College of Georgia NEWS

Source - The Scientist.com Magazine of Life Sciences

AUGUSTA, Ga. - The Medical College of Georgia has been named one of the top 15 places in the United States to work in academia by The Scientist.


MCG, one of two Georgia schools that made the list, is ranked 14th.
Emory University in Atlanta was ranked 5th. The complete list is published in the November issue of the magazine.

Results were compiled from surveys sent to 2,355 scientists who work in academic, hospital, government and research organizations across the country. Respondents were asked to assess their work environments based criteria such as infrastructure, research resources, teaching and mentoring programs.

Overall, respondents focused most on collaboration, team building and unique funding opportunities as important work environment factors.

This ranking is a positive and honest appraisal by those who work here of the exponential growth and enhancement of the MCG research environment, says Dr. D. Douglas Miller, MCG senior vice president for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. Weve worked hard to promote substantial growth by making focused investments in the research enterprise over the past two years.

Dr. Frank Treiber, vice president for research development says those investments continue to grow. We have always made it a priority to offer researchers superior lab space and equipment, funding opportunities that they might not find elsewhere and opportunities to collaborate on multidisciplinary research teams, he says. The creation, last year, of the MCG Discovery Institutes will further foster and strengthen multidisciplinary research at MCG.

Funding opportunities with groups such as the Georgia Research Alliance, which brings together business, research universities and state government to fund innovative university research, also contribute to a healthy research environment, he says.

MCG generated more than $83 million in total research awards in fiscal year 2009 - $60 million of which was from federal funding. Among institutions of a similar size nationwide, MCG was ranked second in terms of research dollars received per scientist in 2006. The institutions research funding has increased 33 percent since 2004, during a period when federal research budget allocations were not increasing, Dr. Treiber says.

Institutions on the list are:

1)Princeton University, N.J.
2)University of California, San Francisco
3)Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y.
4)University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City
5)Emory University, Atlanta
6)J. David Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco
7)St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn.
8)Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle
9)The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Okla.
10)Mayo Clinic, Rochester, N.Y.
11)Trudeau Institute, Saranac Lake, N.Y.
12)University of Pittsburgh
13)Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
14)Medical College of Georgia, Augusta
15)Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York

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