Research Funding at UC San Diego Again Surpasses $1 Billion Milestone

Article Content

Research funding for 2012 at the University of California, San Diego has surpassed $1 billion for the second time in the last three years, the Office of Research Affairs has announced.

Total UC San Diego research funding for the fiscal year which ended on June 30 was more than $1,010,000,000, an increase of about $50 million over the funding for 2011.

UC San Diego competed for and received more than $960 million dollars for research in fiscal year 2011, at that time the university’s second-best year.  

The university first surpassed the billion-dollar mark for research funding in 2010, bringing in more than $1,043,000,000. That number included $160 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (federal stimulus) funding. The 2012 number does not include stimulus funding.

Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said that the record-setting funding is especially impressive for having been achieved during tough economic times for the university, the state, and the nation. “It is really a testament to the concerted efforts of many, many teams across campus,” he said, "and it shows that funding agencies see the need for the kinds of research we're doing at UC San Diego."

The funding supports research in medicine, the sciences, the arts, oceanography, engineering and other fields – research that UC San Diego is internationally recognized for translating into innovations, medical breakthroughs, jobs and new businesses in San Diego and California.

“This level of research funding reflects the dedicated effort of researchers in every discipline across campus," said Vice Chancellor for Research Sandra Brown.  "Faculty members and researchers are working harder than ever before. We sent out about 14 percent more proposals this year, for example. It demonstrates not only that UC San Diego competes very aggressively for available funding, but also that our research projects continue to earn the confidence of federal, state and other funding agencies."

Among the hundreds of projects contributing to the billion-dollar year of research funding, several demonstrate the broad scope and diverse subject-areas of UC San Diego’s scholars and scientists:

• $100,000 award, Ford Foundation, to Teddy Cruz, Visual Arts, for work in the visual arts.
• $617,057, National Institutes of Health, to Jacqueline Kerr, Calit2, for validation of sedentary and light behavior classifications from machine learning.
• $188,000, National Science Foundation, to Naomi Oreskes, History, for a historical and philosophical study of scientific assessments.
• $67,249, Public Policy Institute of California, to Julian Betts, Economics, for work on the San Diego Blueprint for Student Success.
• $10,000, National Science Foundation, to David Serlin, Communications, for work on understanding, mapping and preventing wildfires.
• $459,217, National Science Foundation, to Mark Ohman, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, for studying ecological transitions in the California Current ecosystem.
• $1,309,671, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, to Sylvia Evans, Pharmacy, to help establish an interdisciplinary stem-cell training program.
• $30,045, Veterans Medical Research Foundation, to Lisa Marie Delano-Wood, Psychiatry, for studying neuro-cognitive and behavioral outcomes in blast- and blunt-force injuries.
• $3,781,672, National Institutes of Health, to Scott Lippman, Medicine, for specialized cancer-center support.
• $46,349, Veterans Medical Research Foundation, to Vibha Bhatnagar, Family & Preventive Medicine, to study cardiovascular risk markers in veterans with PTSD.
• $1,403,130, National Institutes of Health, to Kelly Frazer, Cancer Center, for regulatory genomic studies in a cohort of IPS cell-derived cardiomyocytes.
• $24,995, National Park Service, to Hans-Werner Braun, San Diego Supercomputer Center, for high-performance wireless research and an education network for Sea to Shining Sea project.
• $1,038,960, National Institutes of Health, to Stanley Opella, Chemistry & Biochemistry, to help establish resources for NMR molecular imaging of proteins.

“Along with this impressive funding comes an institutional obligation to show taxpayers a good return on their investment,” said Brown. “As a public institution, we expect our research enterprise to leverage these new resources in many ways to benefit our fellow citizens -- as well as globally advantage the United States as a world leader in science, industry, and the arts."

UC San Diego faculty, alumni and staff have founded 156 active companies in San Diego County, generating more than $15.3 billion in annual sales. The university employs more than 18,000 employees and produces more than $20 billion in economic impact in San Diego county.