The Universities at Shady Grove (USG) UMB is fortunate to be able to extend its educational reach beyond Baltimore through participation in the Universities at Shady Grove, an innovative partnership of nine University System of Maryland universities. This partnership, one of USM’s three regional centers, is located approximately 50 miles south of Baltimore in Montgomery County, Maryland. At USG, the nine partner universities provide highly sought academic programs. Each student is enrolled by their “home” institution and receives the same degree as those attending UMB. USG, in turn, provides centralized on-site student, academic, and administrative services. This unique integrated approach allows USG to offer nearly 80 upper-level undergraduate, graduate degree, and certificate programs, in flexible formats that allow students to live, work, and study close to home. USG connects students to outstanding career opportunities while providing regional employers with a highly educated, skilled workforce. At present, UMB offers the following options with a total headcount of roughly 1,000 enrollees: 

• undergraduate and doctoral programs in nursing;
• master’s programs in social work; cannabis science and therapeutics; and pharmaceutical sciences; and
• dual bachelor’s/master’s program in clinical dental hygiene leadership.

The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) is an innovative, structured, and formal collaboration between UMB and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). (See page 17.) The partnership was launched in 2012 by the University System of Maryland Board of Regents and codified by legislation in 2016 by the Maryland Assembly. The partnership leverages the sizable strengths and complementary missions of both institutions to advance interdisciplinary research, create opportunities for students, increase innovation and commercialization of university findings, and tackle critical issues in Maryland and the nation.

The partnership pursues initiatives that leverage the complementary strengths of both UMB and UMCP. The distinguishing feature of Strategic Partnership initiatives is that the programs would be unattainable or difficult to achieve by UMB and UMCP acting independent of each other.

MPower is jointly managed by the president of UMB and the president of UMCP, who have dual authority for resource allocation and oversight over the projects and programs identified as MPower initiatives. Each president is responsible for administration and leadership of their campus, and for pursuing the campus’ vision and mission through the Strategic Partnership.

The MPower partnership and subsequent legislation paved the way for UMB and UMCP to formally link its two research offices in 2018, aligning not only research projects but also infrastructure and leadership under one vice president for research. University of Maryland research is ranked by the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey as No. 10 among all public U.S. research universities and No. 17 in the nation, based on FY 2021 research and development spending. In addition, UM Ventures combines the technology transfer and commercialization efforts at UMB and UMCP. (See page 17.)

With regard to work on UMB’s campus, in FY 2021, UMB received more than $692 million in awards from both for-profit and nonprofit sponsors, including $629 million from federal, state, and other nonprofit grants and contracts. With a longstanding commitment to collaboration and partnership with the global life-sciences industry, UMB also conducted over $63 million in corporate-sponsored research in FY 2021. Currently, the University collaborates with more than 300 bioscience and pharmaceutical firms.

Because of its health schools’ clinical departments and programs and its affiliated practice plans and hospitals, UMB is uniquely qualified within the public higher education sector in Maryland to transfer results from basic laboratory research to the patient’s arena by developing new treatments for disease and establishing best practices for clinical care. Moreover, the presence and active involvement of the schools of law and social work enable UMB faculty and students to investigate the interaction of health sciences with the law and human services, thereby advancing public policy and improving the health and welfare of the citizenry.

A representative list of MPower initiatives by area is as follows: