Despite a troubled state and national economy, the University of Colorado at Boulder received more than $229 million in sponsored research awards for the 2002 fiscal year, setting another campus record.
For the first time since the 1997 fiscal year, the National Science Foundation outpaced NASA in dollars awarded to CU-Boulder in sponsored research, said CU-Boulder Contracts and Grants Director Larry Nelson. NSF provided the most award dollars to the campus - nearly $46 million - followed by NASA and its affiliates at slightly more than $44 million.
CU-Boulder was awarded $219 million in sponsored research in the last fiscal year. The campus first topped the $200 million mark in 1998-1999.
"The Boulder campus faculty was remarkably successful," said Nelson, noting the number of individual awards increased from 1,662 to 1,693. "Twenty percent of the award dollars came from NSF. This is evidence of the campus' healthy and diverse research activities, since NSF funds all science disciplines and the awards involve so many different departments on campus."
NASA funding tends to be more cyclic, said Nelson. "We expect the NASA funding to vary more from year to year depending on the phases of particular projects." During the past two fiscal years, CU-Boulder garnered more than $100 million from NASA and traditionally ranks among the top universities nationally in contracts and grants from the space agency.
In addition, CU-Boulder was awarded $34 million from the Department of Health and Human Services, primarily the National Institutes of Health.Ìý
CU-Boulder also received more than $28 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The bulk of the funds, $18.8 million, went to the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, a joint venture of CU and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In addition, JILA, a joint institute of CU and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, was awarded $5.7 million by the federal department.
Roughly half of the grant proposals submitted by CU-Boulder faculty, researchers and students in the past decade have been funded, said Nelson, who characterized it as "a remarkably stable percentage."
"The record amount of sponsored research awarded to our campus is good news, especially with the uncertain economy," said Chancellor Richard Byyny. "The talent of our faculty members in attracting research dollars combined with their exceptional teaching abilities provide new opportunities for students to participate in leading-edge research and education programs," he said.
Roughly 50 percent of the sponsored research went to the CU-Boulder Graduate School, primarily to fund its numerous centers and institutes. In addition to CIRES and JILA, other campus institutes like the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, the Optoelectronics Computing Systems Center, the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and the Institute of Behavioral Science.
"The outstanding successes of our interdisciplinary institutes and centers reflect the increasing national funding priorities for interdisciplinary approaches to important, complex issues, said CU-Boulder Graduate School Dean Carol Lynch. "The University of Colorado at Boulder is now widely recognized for its leadership in interdisciplinary research and education."
The campus also received more than $8 million each from the State of Colorado and industry, Nelson said.