ENHANCEMENT OF EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH AT UPR RP

University Of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras, San Juan PR

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Abstract

The University of Puerto Rico (UPR) was established in 1903 as Puerto Rico's first public institution of higher education. Rio Piedras (UPR-RP) is one of three UPR campuses with graduate programs. UPR-RP has an enrollment of 21,385 students, comprising about one-third of all of the UPR students. UPR-RP offers doctoral programs in biology, chemistry, and chemical physics, and the Carnegie Council classifies UPR-RP as a Doctoral II institution. Over 99 percent of the students are from Puerto Rico. The College of Natural Sciences, where this proposal is centered, had 2,698 undergraduates and 299 graduate students in 1998-99, about 14 percent of all of the students at the university. Of these, the Department of Biology has 1,154, Chemistry has 303, Physics has 19, and General Sciences and Pre-Med has 770. Biology has 57 master's and 47 doctoral students, whereas Chemistry has 45 and 55, respectively. Nearly 70 percent of the 129 full-time faculty at the College are Puerto Ricans. Over the last five years, these faculty members have published or submitted 728 articles and gave 905 presentations at national and international scientific meetings, an average of just over 1 paper per year per faculty. The MBRS program is centered in the Departments of Biology and Chemistry, with 38 and 34 full-time faculty respectively. From 1996 through 1998, Chemistry had 89 publications of which 61 came from the MBRS program. Over the same period, Biology had 217 publications of which only 19 were from the MBRS program. During the last three years, MBRS investigators in all departments have 192 published articles or manuscripts submitted (53 of these are submitted).