Our faculty were as active as usual in Fiscal Year 1997 in the area of sponsored activities, producing an increase of roughly $3M in external support over FY96 for projects ranging from a telescope in Mexico to assistance for small businesses here in Massachusetts. Our total external funding in FY97 was $70.2M. A remarkable milestone was also achieved by the Department of Computer Science, which became the first UMass department to exceed a level of $10M in external awards during a single year. This was a stunning achievement, as was the performance of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering which has quadrupled its external funding over the past three years, from $1.6M in FY94 to $6.5M in FY97, placing it third in external funding behind Computer Science ($10.9M) and Physics and Astronomy ($9.1M).

The number of proposals remained level with FY96 submissions, while the funding requested increased by 11%. This increase was reflected in all categories of sponsors with the most significant increases being requested from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at 50% and Other States and Local Governments at 18%. These two categories had correspondingly significant increases in awards this year, as well.

Overall the number of awards received decreased slightly (-2% or 22 awards), but the total funding received rose 4%. This included an 11% increase in indirect costs and a 3% increase in direct costs. The institution saw a slight increase of indirect costs as a percentage of direct costs in FY97 over FY96 (26.7% vs. 24.7% respectively). Industrial awards reflected a remarkable 33% increase in indirect costs as a percentage of direct costs; the 25% increase in funding from industrial contracts and the 7% decrease in grants, many of which are unrestricted support, may be part of the explanation.

On the federal front, the University saw a funding decrease of $1.7M (3.6%) to a total of $44.8M. A significant increase of $2.3M (20%) in DOD funding was offset by substantial decreases from NSF and NASA. NSF funding was down by $2.5M and NASA funding was down by $2.1M. A major portion of the NASA reduction can be attributed to a large multi-year cooperative agreement, which was fully funded during the latter part of FY96. A possible explanation for some of the NSF reduction may be that during FY96 there was an increase in up-front, multi-year funding rather than the traditional awards with one-year-at-a-time funding.

Funding from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts increased by an impressive 45% to an all-time record of $8.4M with a corresponding 67% increase in indirect costs, though the number of actual awards decreased by 3%. The Massachusetts Highway Department supported some very substantial projects, for a record $4.2M, representing a 91% increase over the $2.2M awarded during FY96. Likewise, 18% of the increase was due to the Division of Energy Resources, which funded a single award in the amount of $500,000.

In the private sector the FY97 funding ($16.3M) was very encouraging, especially from Foundations (117% increase in funding) and Industry sponsors (15% increase in funding). It is interesting to note that in FY96 ($14.5M) there was a substantial drop in awards in this sponsor category, largely due to an unexpectedly elevated level of funding in FY95 ($19.2M). However, in reviewing the growth from FY94 to FY97, there has been an average increase of approximately 12% per year.

Finally, it should be noted that FY97 was the beginning of a major change process for OGCA as we entered into the world of electronic grant processing and submission, which promises great convenience and efficiency for our customers in the years ahead. Also, by moving the offices of OGCA to Goodell we have both provided better working conditions for our OGCA staff and made things slightly more convenient for our customers. I am very pleased by the energy and enthusiasm with which OGCA has moved forward to improve the level of service, which it provides to our campus.

Frederick W. Byron

Vice Chancellor for Research