PJ knows much more about this than I do. I have only seen documents/criteria about membership in admin. meetings which I reported here. The reports back from people who had meetings with the AAU were that the AAU were aggressively looking to cull membership. I also saw one document that expressly stated this. Schools like Nebraska were forced out because the research dollar totals were largely constituted of non-peer reviewed grants. More like political pork. This is also why a teaching hospital like the one at USF does not count for much in the AAU's eyes. Money for running a hospital is not going to impress the researchers.
On the one hand, Uconn is trying to up its research profile in a time of huge cuts to federal research grants. UConn is also doing this at a time when the bottom fifth of AAU members are scrambling to up their research take in order to avoid being dropped like Nebraska and Syracuse. The plans I saw showed several universities all with strategic initiatives to up their take by 40% in the next 5-10 years.
Good luck with that.
On the other hand, the link that's batted around here about the billions coming to UConn seems to have impressed people at the AAU as a possible future model for all state schools. But there doesn't seem to be any real appreciation for that sort of state funding yet, especially since Connecticut is in the bottom quintile when it comes to state (i.e. taxpayer's) support for the school (in other words, Conn. doesn't spend much per student on Higher Education). Essentially, you're taking money out of the general budget and putting it into more focused and business-oriented projects. The midwestern schools tend to sneer at this sometimes since they really do emphasize comprehensive universities. When you talk to them, they like to make fun of northeastern private schools (one admin. I talked to called them "finishing schools.") That tells you there are no shortcuts. Between the world of a liberal arts college and schools that emphasize tech like GT or Virginia Tech, you have enormous universities that take pride in doing it all. They think of themselves as the models for the word "university" and when it comes to universities worldwide, they are the model.
I know New York state is similarly pouring $1 billion into the Buffalo area for private/university partnerships, as well as biomedical research, but it doesn't seem SUNY is really touting this as a research coup.