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Surge
in Research Funds Noted
External funding for campus research is exceeding expectations this year, according to Chancellor David Scott, who recently announced that the increase in funding is double what was anticipated by University officials. Last year saw $75 million come to the University from outside sources. "This year we expected $79-80 million," said Fred Byron, interim vice chancellor for Research. "The number you'd project off the first half of the year is astounding: $84-85 million, which is twice [the increase] we expected." Through December, outside awards totaled nearly $42.1 million. Last year at that time, the awards totaled just over $37.1 million. "It's half-way through the year," Byron cautioned. "Will that hold up? I don't know. That is certainly not guaranteed. "Anytime you see an increase which is well beyond expectations, you ... are always a bit reluctant to make too big a thing about it." Byron said a possible explanation for the phenomenon is the dramatic rise in the dollar amount requested by faculty in their proposals last year, a 15.4 percent increase over the previous year. "You don't get money unless you ask," he said. "The faculty are doing a bang-up job. Last year we saw the largest increase in proposals I've ever seen. The dollar amount requested was way up." Joseph Goldstein, dean of the College of Engineering, concurs. "Often times there's a correlation between the number of proposals we put out and our success." The college produced 5 percent more proposals requesting 9.5 percent more funding in 1999 than in 1998. Another possible factor Byron cites is the federal funding climate. "This is the best time for federal funding of research since the 1960s. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have subscribed to the knowledge-economy theory, and that's good for universities." Goldstein and Linda Slakey, dean of Natural Science and Mathematics, whose schools bring in two-thirds of the campus's outside research funding, also believe that a high level of success among faculty hired during the last 10 years is contributing to the big numbers. "One of the things is that some of our newer, younger faculty have been very successful," Goldstein said. "Our regular faculty have continued to work very hard on their research, and that's continuing to be successful." "We did an assessment in which we looked at everybody who had been hired since any given year," Slakey said. "We asked how much outside funding the people had brought in. It shows quite unequivocally that the increase in funding is equal to the amount of funding brought in by the people who have come onto campus since 1989." Slakey said another factor is "the maturation of the programs of people who have been on board 10 years or more." "If you look back case by case, you'll see that people who have been here 10 to 15 years, as their programs mature, begin to be competitive on a different scale," she added. "People go from being competitive for a single grant to being part of a center grant or even the initiator of one, and the amount brought in jumps sometimes by an order of magnitude. Typically people who participate in a center grant also have smaller grants that they are bringing in." In the end, she said, faculty at all levels are making major contributions. "The faculty have continued to be very vigorous in spite of the constraints that the University is under," she said. The recent success "is a measure of commitment in the faculty to making the effort." |
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