The University of Colorado at Boulder received more than $174 million in sponsored research awards for the 1996-97 fiscal year, the highest total ever for the campus and a 24 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.
About 90 percent of the money was awarded directly or indirectly by federal agencies, said Jerry Peterson, assistant vice chancellor for research. The rest came from foundations, corporations, private and non-profit agencies, institutes, other universities and the state of Colorado.
The current total surpassed the 1995-96 figure for contracts and grants awarded to CU-Boulder by nearly $40 million.
"What's really important is that this reflects the continuous success that's been going on for nearly three decades," said Larry Nelson, director of the CU-Boulder Office of Contracts and Grants. "The amount of sponsored project funding has doubled every 6 or 7 years."
The primary federal agencies granting money to the university in 1996-97 were NASA, $36 million; the National Science Foundation, $28 million; the Department of Commerce, $26 million; and the Department of Health and Human Services, $24 million.
While the number of funding proposals submitted by the campus has remained steady at more than 1,700 for each of the past six years, the rate of success in receiving grants rose from 42 percent in 1993 to 45 percent in 1995, the most recent figures available.
"This is a remarkable success rate in an era of increasingly tough competition," Nelson said.
In addition to benefits from research advances, CU-Boulder contracts and grants also provide employment to hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty and post-doctoral researchers.