UO's research funding mounts.

Byline: GREG BOLT The Register-Guard

The latest record at the University of Oregon was set in its laboratories, where researchers have hit a new high in outside research funding.

The UO brought in just more than $79 million in grants and contracts, most of it from federal agencies, in the budget year that ended in June. That's a 30 percent increase over the $57.7 million earned the previous year.

Along with a new high mark in research funding, the university also set a record in revenue from licenses on inventions and innovations produced in its labs. Revenue from such technology transfer sources came to $536,464, up 4 percent from the record set the year before.

Research money funds an array of projects, in disciplines from neuroscience and chemistry to education and sociology. Almost all of the money comes from competitive grant programs, in which UO researchers submit proposals for a limited pool of funding.

Among the labs receiving funding were the Institute of Neuroscience, which won additional funding for its program using a research-grade magnetic resonance imaging device for charting brain functions. One of the larger awards, almost $5 million, went to the College of Education for research on early childhood intervention and special education programs.

Faculty in the Zebrafish International Resource Center garnered almost $500,000 in funding for continued work on genomic analysis, and a professor in the Institute for Theoretical Science won $800,000 for research in high-energy physics. Grants range from a few thousand dollars to more than $1 million.

Rich Linton, vice president of research and graduate studies, said an overall increase in federal research dollars helped the university boost funding despite the poor economy.

But he said the university also competes well against much larger institutions because of the caliber of its research programs.

Linton said last year's research total works out to an average of $120,000 per tenured or tenure-track faculty member, an amount that is about double the average faculty salary.

"I think it's a great statement about how successful our faculty members are in getting outside support for their work," he said. "I think that's a very impressive figure."

Seventy-three percent of the total came from federal sources. The biggest contributor was the Department of Health and Human Services, which provided $25 million in research funding, followed by the Department of Education with $19 million and the National Science Foundation at $11 million.

The UO's College of Arts and Sciences brought in $44 million in research awards, and the College of Education was next with $21.4 million. The education school is near the top nationally in average research funding per faculty member.

Technology transfer is another bright spot. Don Gerhart, the UO's director of technology transfer, said revenue produced in the past two years is up 93 percent from the previous two years.

The UO in recent years has boosted its efforts to turn university research into marketable projects with the aim of increasing revenue from patents, copyrights and other intellectual property. University research produced five start-up companies from 1995 to 2000, putting the UO 25th among the 117 top American universities in new spin-offs per research dollar, Gerhart said.

Nationally, universities average about one spin-off company for every $100 million in research funding, but the UO has done better than that. The university has produced two start-ups in the past two years and has two or three more in the pipeline, Gerhart said, even though its research funding has yet to hit the $100 million mark.

"We're just delighted to see the numbers come up the way they have and continue to rise," he said, adding that this year's figures are keeping pace with last year's. "It looks as if we're at least going to hold steady."

The new research and technology transfer records are good news, but Linton said success also creates some challenges. More research funding means more research is taking place, which is putting pressure on lab space in campus buildings.

Because most funding for construction and renovation must come from state appropriations or private donations, getting money for expansion has always been difficult.

And with the state economy depressed, Linton said it will just get more difficult for the university to continue building its research programs.

"It's more and more uncertain what the future holds," he said.

So far this year, research funding is keeping pace with the record set last year.

And with support in Congress for further increases in the research budgets of National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, Linton said he's hopeful the UO's momentum can be sustained.

But the university still has a ways to go to catch up with the state's research powerhouse. Oregon State University scientists brought in $159 million last year, a 10 percent increase and also a new record. Technology licensing brought in another $1.25 million.

Some of OSU's research funding comes from direct appropriations for continuing programs such as the OSU Extension Service. But even when those are subtracted, Oregon State brought in $127 million in competitively awarded research grants.