UM Research Funding Jumps Past $400 Million Mark

College Park, Md. -- Research awards to the University of Maryland, College Park surged to an all-time high of $407 million during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2007. This is $57 million more than last year's total of $350 million in sponsored research.

These funds for research, training and outreach and other public service activities come from a variety of sources, including the federal government, state government, corporations and foundations.

"The University of Maryland strives to discover and apply new knowledge resulting from its world-class research to serve the needs of society today and in the future," said University President C.D. Mote Jr. "These grant and contract funds support the work of students, scholars and faculty who will undertake this research. New knowledge through research is a key contribution of a top-ranked university to its state and country."

The many research awards received in Fiscal 2007 represent a vast range of research projects in many areas such as climate change and weather prediction, security and intelligence, language acquisition and technology, transportation and energy. For example, among the new grants and contracts is funding from NASA for the University of Maryland-based Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), a leading center for research to understand and forecast climate change and its impacts. The new funding for ESSIC extends, and expands on, the initial NASA support that enabled the establishment of the center in 1999.

"This significant increase in research funding is testimony to the energy and quality of our researchers, to the leadership provided by the university's deans and the directors of our research centers and to the benefits of supporting interdisciplinary teams to compete successfully for an increasing number of large multi-year grants, from such agencies as NASA, NOAA, DOD, NSF, USDA and the State of Maryland," said Vice President for Research Melvin Bernstein.

The University of Maryland's new research park, M Square, has also had an impact on the funding increase, attracting world-class clusters of scientists and researchers in a number of areas. "When the new National Weather and Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- along with a related facility for global climate change scientist and partner organizations -- opens, we will have one of the largest clusters of climate change researchers and scientists in the world," said Brian Darmody, associate vice president for research and economic development.

The university is also building similar clusters in other areas, including food safety/food security, and research devoted to the intelligence community and language research. For example, new federally-funded research in language is administered by several University organizations in the research park, including the Center for the Advanced Study of Language (CASL) and the National Foreign Language Center.

The University of Maryland, College Park is the Flagship of the University System of Maryland (USM) In FY 2006, the 13 USM institutions received almost $1 billion ($975.9 million) in external funding for research. System totals for FY 2007 are not yet available.