$322 MIllion For Fy2007 Research

The University of Utah collected $322.6 million in research money, fellowships and financial aid during the 2007 fiscal year - a new record that follows a one-year decline in the university’s economy-boosting science funding.

“It is astonishing – despite the highly competitive and under-funded national support of science – that we have been able to have our research supported at record levels,” says Ray Gesteland, the university’s vice president for research and a distinguished professor of human genetics. “We’ve clearly gotten through the downturn of the previous year.”

The University of Utah collected $322,577,813 in research funding during the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to the university’s Office of Sponsored Projects. About three-quarters of that came from the federal government.

The $322.6 million total includes $228,822,277 in research grants, $41,753,556 in contract research and services, $22,142,362 in training grants that support graduate and postdoctoral students doing research, $13,815,159 in clinical research and $16,044,458 in fellowships and financial aid.

“The economy is benefited by the great work University of Utah researchers are doing,” says Brent Brown, director of the Office of Sponsored Projects.

“The dollars that come in to support research at the university pay for faculty salaries, buildings, goods and services; offset costs the state would otherwise pay; and help educate students,” Brown adds. “Those students contribute to society, and the inventions that come from the scientific work the faculty are doing are spun out of the university and create further jobs in high-tech industries.”

The $322.6 million in FY2007 research funding represents an 8.7 increase over $296.7 million in FY2006, which in turn represented a decrease from $318.1 million in FY2005 – the only downturn in recent years. University of Utah research funding has more than doubled in the past 15 years.

The Feds Provide Three-Fourths of U of Utah Research Money
Of the $322.6 million total for the fiscal year covering July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007:

-- 63.2 percent ($203,791,163) came directly from federal agencies.

-- 9.9 percent ($31,977,228) were federal flow-down dollars, meaning federal money the University of Utah and its researchers received as subcontractors to the primary recipients of federal funds.

-- 10.4 percent ($33,392,246) came from private industry.

-- 4.5 percent ($14,663,535) was paid by states, mostly the State of Utah.

-- 7.0 percent ($22,709,182) came from other non-federal sources, including local governments, other government agencies (not federal, state or local), associations and foundations, hospitals, and other research institutions and universities.

-- 5.0 percent ($16,044,458) came in the form of fellowships and financial aid from various sources.

Of $203.8 million provided directly by federal agencies, sources included $159.4 million from the Department of Health and Human Services (including the National Institutes of Health), $21.4 million from the National Science Foundation, $8.4 million from the Department of Energy, $5.3 million from the Department of Defense, $2.2 million from the Department of Education, $1.3 million from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, $1.2 million from the Department of Interior, $1 million from the Department of Transportation, and the rest from other U.S. agencies.

The University of Utah is the state’s major research university. In 2006, the University of Utah ranked 29th overall among the nation’s public research universities, according to the latest edition of “The Top American Research Universities” by the Center for Measuring University Performance.

In measures related to financing, the University of Utah ranked 14th among public research universities in annual giving by private donors, 32nd in total federal research funds, 34th in endowment assets and 41st in total research funds.