Research grants at CU Boulder top $500M; $1B at all 4 campuses

BOULDER — Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder were awarded $507.9 million in research grants in the 2016–17 fiscal year, a 16 percent increase from the previous year, continuing a decade’s worth of growth in sponsored research funding.

The amount marks the second-highest yearly funding total in campus history, topped only by the 2009–2010 fiscal year that benefited from a one-time influx of federal stimulus dollars.

Seventy percent — or $355.5 million — of the sponsored research dollars on the Boulder campus is from federal agencies; 17 percent is from international organizations and nonprofits; 7 percent is from other universities; 5 percent come from industry partners; and 1 percent comes from the state. The top three federal funding agencies supporting research at CU Boulder are the Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation and NASA.

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The CU system broke a record this year with faculty from all four campuses — Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs and Anschutz — being awarded $1.034 billion in federal, state and local awards, based on preliminary figures. It’s the first time that the four-campus system has topped $1 billion in annual sponsored-research funding, which increased 12 percent compared with the previous year.

Examples of projects receiving research grants include reducing energy and water consumption, vaccines for infectious diseases that don’t require refrigeration, prevention of youth violence in two Denver neighborhoods, climate-monitoring equipment and the creation of a so-called “third lung” for severely injured patients that could keep them alive until arrival at a hospital.