The Historical Context of the Institute

Emeritus Directors Left to Right: Rex Forehand, Steven Beach, Abraham Tesser, Bill Owens

The Institute for Behavioral Research was given shape by William A. Owens, Jr. He began the Institute with the twin goals of fostering interdisciplinary research and enhancing scholarship in the Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Georgia. Bill Owens, who is fondly called "Doc", foresaw the shift from single discipline "method focused" research to interdisciplinary "problem focused" research.

Under its second director, Abraham Tesser, the IBR was re-organized around focused centers of activity. This superimposed a "problem-focused" structure on the broad interdisciplinary structure of the IBR that existed during Bill Owens' directorship. In this new structure, the broad interdisciplinary structure was retained in the form of regular IBR seminars that encompassed all fellows, and the CENTERS were charged with providing more focused discussions on particular problem domains.

As its third director, Rex Forehand emphasized the role of extramural funding in developing and maintaining outstanding scholarship in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. While continuing to recognize the importance of support for grant writing and further extending service to the broader University community, greater emphasis was placed on extending the center-focus of the Institute. As such several new working Groups were organized and, when they proved successful, they evolved into formally recognized work groups within the Institute.

The fourth director of the Institute, Steven R. H. Beach, has continued building on the solid foundation of IBR’s past. He has moved the Institute in two primary new directions. First, he has emphasized the emergence of areas of Excellence within the Institute. Second, he has broadened the traditional interdisciplinary nature of the IBR to include a trans-disciplinary focus on genetics and neuroscience. Because of the diversity of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, scholars pursue their research in a variety of ways. However, in the great majority of cases, there is no better mechanism for sharpening the programmatic nature of one's work than subjecting it to the review process required by extramural funding. As a result, the increased focus on Excellence has led to an increased focus on expanding sources of extramural support for those in the social and behavioral sciences.

In the current funding climate, this focus creates a need to provide an excellent interdisciplinary climate for theory development and research and to foster groups that will be widely recognized as the intellectual leaders in a given area. By helping to foster the emergence of “teams of scholars” combining their efforts to address focused problems, the IBR is moving rapidly in this direction. Of course, in view of it's importance as a mechanism for achieving excellence, IBR continues to facilitate extramural grant funding activity across the Social and Behavioral Sciences, and to reach out beyond the usual boundaries of the Institute for Behavioral Research.

Under Steven Beach’s leadership the IBR was reorganized with greater emphasis on input from an executive committee comprised of leading social and behavioral science scholars from within the University. A new mechanism of support for scholarship was provided by allowing fellows to request support from the Institute tied to their efforts to obtain extramural support. Just as we can easily recognize the intellectual value of submitting one's research reports for peer review, the grant submission process can confer substantial intellectual benefit and increased confidence in a line of research. Likewise, extramural support allows Social and Behavioral Science at UGA to attain broader scope and to address important problems confronting the citizens of Georgia and the Nation. As a result, strengthening the infrastructure for grant proposal submission and providing targeted support for faculty efforts to expand their grant support remains a corner stone of IBR’s activities under Steven Beach’s leadership. This emphasis is reflected in regular meetings to support grant proposal resubmissions, the “pink sheet review” process, and regularly scheduled seminars and workshops by outside speakers focusing on methods of data collection and analysis. In keeping with IBR’s long-standing "service" approach, attendance at the Methods Group, and any other group or center seminars, is open to anyone in the University or community and has attracted many participants from outside IBR.