The University Iowa is reporting another record year for what it calls “external funding,” things like grants for research. U-I interim vice president for research and economic development, Jordan Cohen, made the announcement today.

Cohen says the total awards were $466.5 million, up nearly 9% from last year’s $429.5 million. He says the distribution between federal and non federal sources of the money was 310-million federal 155-non federal. Cohen says the increase continued a trend that saw the external funding remain strong.

“It’s a remarkable story for research for the University of Iowa, really remarkable story,” Cohen says, “if you look carefully at that, really literally going back to the mid 80s, 25 years, 26 years ago, there’ve only been three years where we’ve even had a slight downturn in funding, otherwise it’s been a pretty impressive rise in our funding capability.” Federal funding represented 66-percent of the money.

Cohen says the largest segment of their external funding comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, and the larger component of that is from the National Institutes of Health for the health sciences and college of medicine for health related research. The increase in funding includes more than $40-million in federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Iowa State University officials also set a new record for external funding. I.S.U. says the school attracted a record $388.2 million — an increase of $83 million and a 27% increase over last year’s record. Just over $21 million was federal economic stimulus money.

Iowa State’s largest single source of external funding was the U.S. Department of Energy at just over $59-million. The second highest source was the U.S. Department of Agriculture at nearly $52-million.

The third highest was the National Science Foundation at $46.8 million.

  • U-I’s major funding agencies:
    Department of Health & Human Services (includes $219 million from NIH) $240.5 million (up 11.7 percent).
    National Science Foundation: $14 million (up 12 percent).
    NASA: $9.6 million (up 4.6 percent).
    Department of Education: $22.4 million (up 19.1 percent).
    Department of Defense: $8.2 million (down 8.9 percent).
    States: $61 million (up 27 percent).
    Industry: $30.8 million (down 19.7 percent).
    Private Organizations: $32.5 million (down 19.1 percent).

Iowa State’s external funding came from the following sources:
Federal
Energy, $59,267,985
Agriculture, $51,883,266
National Science Foundation, $46,797,648
Education, $28,662,828
Health and Human Services, $20,533,625
Defense, $10,945,023
Transportation, $7,986,419
Commerce, $3,122,887
NASA, $1,529,047
Interior, $388,796
Environmental Protection Agency, $245,462
Other, $5,631,671
Total Federal $236,994,657 

Non-Federal
ISU Foundation, $42,471,075
Businesses/Corporations/Commodities, $38,681,411
State, County and City Government, $35,139,824
Universities and Colleges, $17,757,528
External Foundations and Associations, $13,428,710
Individuals, $120,800
Other, $3,593,586
Total Non-Federal $151,192,934
Grand Total $388,187,591