University of Denver Winter 2023

M ay you live in interesting times.

research enterprise, one buoyed by the news in early 2022 that the University had been designated a Research 1 (R1) institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. That’s Carnegie’s top designation, and it signals that DU is engaged at the highest levels of research activity. According to the University’s annual report on research and scholarship, DU’s research expenditures topped $43 million in fiscal year 2022. “That’s the highest value our institution has ever achieved,” says Corinne Lengsfeld, senior vice provost for research and graduate education. Lengsfeld expects that momentum to continue. “DU faculty research and scholarship are on fire right now, and the impact from [the institition’s many] grants is awe- inspiring,” she says. This fiscal year, research expenditures are tracking about 8% above last year’s expenditures. From July 1 through Oct. 31, 2022, faculty researchers received more new awards from external sponsors than they did from July 1, 2021, to June 31, 2022. Meanwhile, the backlog of unexpended awards has continued to grow, reaching more than $65 million. As a research enterprise, Lengsfeld says, “We are no longer a diamond in the rough. We are unstoppable and here to stay.”

So goes the ancient Chinese curse. And whatever else naysayers or irrepressible optimists might

proclaim about the year ahead, no one is likely to dismiss it as uneventful. After all, strife and war rage within and between all too many localities and countries. And with economic chal lenges persisting, with environmental dilemmas looming (think diminishing biodiversity), and with social problems mounting, a shared prosperity seems increasingly out of reach. At the University of Denver, scholars across the disciplines are focusing on projects and initiatives that aim to improve individual lives by advancing local and global prospects for peace and civility and by exploring new routes to sustainable prosperity. They’re studying ways to promote economic stability by improving the power grid. They’re contributing to our understanding of how immigration changes com munities and how to optimize the benefits of diversity. They’re examining the conundrums resulting when citizens disagree over constitutional rights. And they’re looking ahead to how a rising China could affect everything from diplomacy and the projection of military power to economic conditions in the United States. All of these efforts are part of a growing and robust

A RISING CHINA PORTENDS A DIFFERENT WORLD

By Emma Atkinson

system,” he says. “This is a really messy, kind of complicated area, because you can’t measure power and influence directly in an aggregate way, for a variety of reasons.”

As China has grown its economy and international influence over the last half-century, it has become known as a major world power, working alongside—and some times against—the U.S. to advance its interests.

But the IF model’s index-based approach allows researchers to measure these things —power and influence, specifically—in a more indirect way. “We create indices that try to

Now, new research from the University of Denver’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures suggests that China may overtake the U.S. as the world’s greatest power sometime in the next 20 years. If that happens, it will mean a very different world. To get a handle on that differ ent world—and possibly on how to avoid it—Pardee Center direc tor Jonathan Moyer and his team use the International Futures (IF) model, developed at DU by professor Barry Hughes over a 40-year period, to forecast and examine development within major systems such as economics, demo graphics and governance.

approximate measures of power and influence, and then we use those within the International Futures system to forecast what’s the most likely development

trajectory,” Moyer explains. “Then, the last bit of the puzzle is to create alternative scenarios. So, we’re not interested in just simply predicting what’s going to happen, but instead, we’re interested in better understanding the range of uncertainty and the things that would have to happen to dramatically shift these develop ment trajectories across time. That’s the focus of this kind of U.S.-China work.”

“We’ve also done quite a bit of work on thinking about how to measure power and influence in the international

WINTER 2023 • UNIVERSITY of DENVER MAGAZINE | 21