NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The amount of external funding that Vanderbilt University researchers received last year from peer-reviewed contracts and grants jumped by a dramatic 31 percent to reach an all-time high of $285.8 million.
In fiscal year 2002, extramural funding at the Medical Center surged by 36 percent to a total of $211.9 million, making it the third fastest growing academic health center in the country in terms of funding from the federal National Institutes of Health. At the same time, support for research on the rest of the campus increased by 21 percent to a record $73.9 million.
Although external support of research at Vanderbilt has grown steadily in recent years, it had been doing so at significantly lower annual rates ranging from 2 to 9 percent.
“It was a very exciting year,” summed up John Childress, the acting director of the Division of Sponsored Research, which processes contract and grant applications for university central.
The reason for his excitement is spelled out in a series of tables, graphs and charts in the division’s recently released “Annual Report of Sponsored Research and Projects: Fiscal Year 2002.”
The graph showing the dollar value of contracts and grants for university central starts at $17.2 million in FY 1985. The line grows by fits and starts to about $50 million in FY 1999. Then, for the last three years, it has risen steadily to last year’s total of $73.9 million.
The Medical Center’s Office of Research issued a similar report earlier in the year that details record growth in funding for medical research from government agencies and other external sources. According to its latest figures, external awards for research surged 36 percent over those in the previous fiscal year, which in turn was 9 percent higher than FY 2000.
“Generous increases in the budgets of the Public Health Service and National Institutes of Health provided by Congress have made this possible,” commented Lee Limbird, associate vice chancellor for research at the Medical Center.
“At the same time, our faculty has been more aggressive in seeking out funding opportunities. We are currently averaging an amazing ratio of 1.5 grants per faculty member,” she added. “In addition, much of our growth has come from our ability to put together impressive, multi-investigator research teams capable of tackling the tough, interdisciplinary research required to address an increasing number of important problems.”
One example of such successful, multi-investigator collaborations is a $3.1 million diabetes study headed by Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Mark Magnuson and Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology Chris Wright that is piecing together the development of the pancreas from a single cell to a functioning organ.
A $1.3 million project headed by David Bader, the Gladys Parkinson Stahlman Professor of Cardiovascular Research, which is investigating coronary vessel development, is an example of the Medical Center’s ongoing effort to assemble research teams that combine basic researchers with clinicians in “bench to bedside” projects designed to apply the latest research results to improve patient care.
The 21 percent increase in competitive research awards on the rest of the campus “is very impressive, but not unexpected,” Childress said. “It is the result of the efforts of exceptional new faculty hires complementing the activity of the highly productive group of existing researchers.”
Among the highlights for the year in university central was the meteoritic rise of funding in psychology. It has nearly doubled from $3.1 million in FY 1999 to $6.1 million last year. The School of Engineering has posted similar increases, rising from $10.9 million in FY 1999 to $19.3 million in FY 2002. Peabody College also had an exceptionally strong year, shooting up to $19.4 million in FY 2002 from levels hovering around $15 million.
Media contact: David Salisbury, 615-343-6803, david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu