The University of Colorado at Boulder received about $266.2 million in sponsored research awards in fiscal year 2007, the highest total in campus history.
The sponsored research total surpasses the previous CU-Boulder record of $259.7 million set in the 2004 fiscal year, said Office of Contracts and Grants Director Randall Draper. CU-Boulder first topped the $200 million mark in 1999. About 85 percent of CU-Boulder's sponsored research total for 2007 comes from both direct and indirect federal funding, he said.
As in recent years, CU-Boulder's leading funding agencies for 2007 were NASA ($46.9 million), the National Science Foundation ($43.9 million), the Department of Health and Human Services ($40.3 million) and the Department of Commerce ($33.1 million).
The 2007 total for the campus is up nearly $10 million from the 2006 total of $256.5 million, although the figures are still preliminary, said Draper. The official CU-Boulder sponsored research totals will be available in the annual year-end report in late 2007 by the Office of Contracts and Grants, he said.
"There is increasing competition by all research universities and institutions for a diminishing pot of federal award dollars, so the faculty at CU-Boulder should be recognized for their success," said Draper.
CU-Boulder also received roughly $9.8 million from the Department of Defense, $7.9 million from the Department of Education, $7.8 million from the Department of Energy and $2.1 million from the Department of the Interior.
"Our faculty are doing yeoman's work, and we receive a surprisingly rich blend of sponsored research funding," said Stein Sture, CU-Boulder's vice-chancellor for academic affairs and Dean of the Graduate School. "The dedication of our faculty in successfully competing for awards helps to support our graduate students, who are involved in many innovative projects that benefit Colorado and the nation."
In addition to the NASA total of $46.9 million, CU-Boulder was awarded $3 million in federal funds for space research from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
CU-Boulder also received about $17.9 million from industry, $2.6 million from the state of Colorado and $31.7 million from other universities, he said.
Campus-based research institutes and the Graduate School received about $142.2 million, more than half of the sponsored research funding to the campus, said Draper. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics led the way with about $48.6 million and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was close behind with about $47.8 million.
Other campus institutes receiving significant funding included JILA -- a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the Department of Commerce -- with $17.5 million, the Institute of Behavioral Genetics with $9 million, the Institute of Behavioral Science with $8.7 million, the Institute of Cognitive Science with $5 million and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research with $4.7 million
The primary federal science agencies have been funding more large, multi-disciplinary projects in recent years, an arena where CU-Boulder is well positioned because of its many collaborative research institutes, Sture said. The campus hopes to secure more research dollars from private industry in the future, which currently accounts for less than 10 percent of CU-Boulder's sponsored research total annually, he said.
The total sponsored research awards in 2007 to the University of Colorado system was about $637 million. The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center brought in $363 million - the majority from NIH -- and CU-Colorado Springs campus attracted $7.9 million. For more information on the CU system research funding, go to the Web at: .