Monday, November 27, 2000
Registering historic steps
Institutional strategic plan receives unanimous approval
Milestone: External research funding tops $100 million
By Chuck Toney
ctoney@uga.edu

For the first time in its history, the University of Georgia has exceeded $100 million in externalresearch funding during one fiscal year. For the 1999-2000 fiscal year which ended June 30, 2000, UGA received a total of $101.9 million in research awards, grants and contracts. Furthermore, research awards for the first quarter of the 2000-2001 fiscal year are up 66 percent, at $39.6 million.
Total research funding for the 1998-99 fiscal year was $91 million. External research funding at the university has almost doubled since 1989-90, when it was $57.3 million.
“We have had tremendous success in external funding in the past year and continuing into this year,” says Provost Karen Holbrook, whose office is responsible for the university’s research mission. “This is a very positive trend in the research strength of the University of Georgia. I am pleased to have passed the $100 million milestone and I look forward to many, many more milestones of this kind.”
A flurry of large research-grant announcements earlier this fall indicated that the momentum is continuing into the current academic year:
• A team led by biochemist B.C. Wang was one of seven nationwide groups to receive funding from the National Institutes of Health to study the structures of proteins. The grant was close to $4 million for the first year of the five-year project.
• Susan Wessler, a Research Professor of Botany, is leading a team that received a $3.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a five-year project to study the genome of the rice plant, the world’s number one crop.
• Three professors in the College of Education have received U.S. Department of Education grants totaling almost $18 million to improve teacher training and to improve reading skills in early elementary school students. These are also five-year projects.
The university received $67.7 million in research funding from 25 different federal agencies, a 13.4 percent increase over the previous year. Additional research funding came from foundations and other private sources, industry and the state.
Funding from the National Institutes of Health increased from $11.67 million to $15.08 million, an increase of almost 30 percent in one year. Funding from the NIH reflects UGA’s strength in biomedical research, says UGA President Michael F. Adams.
“Biomedical research is the next great frontier of knowledge,” Adams says. “I, too, am pleased that we have passed this milestone. The task now is to set our sights even higher.”
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