UCI Gets Record $84.8 Million in Grants : Grants: The school’s total, including contract work, is an 8.7% increase over last year. The record amount is significant in recessionary period.
UC Irvine scholars and scientists garnered a school record $84.8 million in research grants and contracts in the 1990-91 academic year, an 8.7% increase over the previous year, university officials reported this week.
UCI officials were particularly elated about their eighth successive year of gains in research grant dollars because it comes against a backdrop of a national and statewide economic recession, skyrocketing federal deficits and ever-increasing competition for funding.
“This increase in grant funds for UCI is a real tribute to our faculty,” said Paul Sypherd, UCI’s vice chancellor for research and graduate studies.
“Academic researchers across the nation are experiencing greater and greater difficulty in obtaining research funds,” he said. “UCI researchers, on the other hand, have exhibited real entrepreneurial spirit in going after these shrinking resources.”
UCI’s total research and grant dollars still pale by comparison to scientific powerhouses such as Johns Hopkins University, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Washington and UCLA, the top five U.S. universities in receiving federal funds in fiscal 1989. UCI ranked 54th that year with $47.3 million, compared to first place Johns Hopkins’ $411.8 million, according to the National Science Foundation.
Current-year rankings are not out yet. But a more specialized poll just recently released placed UCI sixth in the nation for neurosciences research. And university officials say that this year’s record take in grants shows the 26-year-old school to be doing well.
“It means we’re doing what we set out to do . . . which was over the long haul to develop a university that can be counted among the best in the United States,” said James L. McGaugh, director of UCI’s center for neurobiology of learning and memory and a founding faculty member.
“The interesting thing is, when you look at all these (indicators), it shows that we’re getting better all the time, that we’re already very good, and in some areas, we are very, very good,” he added.
The largest single grant was $2.63 million to professor Leon Osterweil, chairman of UCI’s department of information and computer sciences. The three-year grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, supports Osterweil’s work in improving computer software development processes.
A close second was the DARPA grant of $2.5 million brought in by associate computer science professor Richard Taylor and his collaborator, professor Richard W. Selby, for their research into ways that computer software program managers can better track resources and monitor progress.
Both grants fund portions of the Arcadia project, a consortium of researchers at four universities and three companies. The Arcadia project, now in its fourth year and based primarily at UCI, aims to develop a model software development environment that will allow computer programmers to build faster, more accurate and cost-efficient software systems.
“It’s very gratifying that this project, which received DARPA funding three years ago, has been successful and that that success has been rewarded with another grant,” Taylor said.
The third-largest grant was $2.49 million to Frederick Reines, physics professor emeritus who, along with a colleague, discovered the subatomic particle called the neutrino. The U.S. Department of Energy contract supports studies in neutrino physics, cosmic rays and elementary particles by Reines and his research team.
But it was neurobiologist Carl Cotman who brought in the highest total funding--more than $3.3 million spread among 15 separate grants. Cotman is a nationally known researcher in brain chemistry and its effect on memory and learning. He also is studying ways to reverse Alzheimer’s disease.
In total contracts and grants, computer scientist Taylor ranked second with three awards totaling $3.03 million. Osterweil was third with $2.8 million.
“I believe our success also speaks well for the importance of the research going on at UCI in many fields,” Sypherd said.
When looking at dollar amounts attracted by UCI researchers, the spotlight tends to fall solely on large science and medical projects, and obscures excellent scholarship occurring in the humanities and other areas. McGaugh noted that UCI researchers in the humanities and other areas also are producing cutting-edge work and receiving highly competitive fellowships.
In the sciences, though, as more researchers are competing for available federal funds, UCI is a young institution with young scholars who are holding their own.
“It is really tough for young faculty these days,” said William Parker, UCI’s associate executive vice chancellor. “One needs to be ambitious, and that certainly characterizes UCI.”
Million-Dollar Club
UC Irvine researchers were awarded a record $84.8 million in grants and contracts during the 1990-91 academic year. Shown below are those who received more than $1 million in grants.
Principal Total Amount Investigator School/Department Grants of Grants Carl Cotman Psychobiology 15 $3,336,610 Richard Taylor Information & Computer Science 3 $3,029,540 Leon Osterweil Information & Computer Science 2 $2,824,868 Steven Barker Anesthesiology 4 $2,498,364 Frederick Reines Physics 1 $2,495,000 Hung Fan Molecular Biology & Biochemistry 11 $2,265,797 Larry Overman Chemistry 13 $1,632,651 Eric Stanbridge Microbiology & Molecular Genetics 5 $1,127,589 Eloy Rodriguez Developmental & Cell Biology 5 $1,082,912 William Mautz Community & Environmental Medicine 4 $1,032,024 Manuel Gomez Academic Affairs 7 $1,007,584 Jeremiah Tilles Medicine 6 $1,007,282
Source: UC Irvine
