Sean W. Mulvenon has been appointed director for research assessment and promotion at the University of Arkansas, a new position in the office of vice provost for research and economic development.

The appointment is for 18 months and can be renewed, said Jim Rankin, vice provost for research and economic development.

Mulvenon’s primary goals are to establish more effective and efficient data structures, reporting features and research functionality in the office of vice provost for research and economic development, an academic unit dedicated to growing the research infrastructure and capacity of the university. Mulvenon previously served as the university’s assistant vice provost for research from 2008-10.

He will remain director of the National Office for Research on Measurement and Evaluation Systems, which Mulvenon founded in 1996 with a $500 grant. The office has grown to an organization housed in the College of Education and Health Professions with annual funding in excess of $1 million.

“A tremendous challenge in growing our scholarly productivity, grant awards, and recognition as a research institution is overcoming the myth that this emphasis detracts from the University of Arkansas being a student-centered academic institution,” Mulvenon said. “Our success in growing the research capacity at the university will increase academic expectations in the classroom and the value of degrees from the U of A.

“If the U of A continues to grow its research capacity, ranging in initiatives from energy to health, it will ultimately translate to new businesses and job opportunities in Arkansas,” he said.

Mulvenon, a professor of educational statistics and research methods, joined the College of Education and Health Professions faculty in 1995. He held the university’s George M. and Boyce W. Billingsley Chair for Educational Research and Policy Studies from 2004-09.

From 2005-08, he worked in Washington, D.C., as a senior adviser to the office of the deputy secretary in the U.S. Department of Education.

Mulvenon earned both a doctorate and a master’s degree in measurement, statistics and methodological studies from Arizona State University. A native of Yakima, Wash., he received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Eastern Washington University.