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September 13, 1999
UCSC researchers attracted $50.6 million in external contracts and grants to UCSC last year, the highest total ever received by the campus.
The increase in contracts and grants funding during the 1998-99 year reflects a pattern of continued growth that the campus has sustained for the last decade, said UCSC's associate vice chancellor for research James Gill. The campus's total contracts and grants funding has grown by more than 150 percent since 1990, he added.
"Our per capita level of external support is now on a par with most of the best public universities," said Gill.
The single-largest grant was received by the Education Department's Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence, as was the case the prior year. For 1998-99, the grant was $3.8 million.
Research funds received from federal, state, and private agencies totaled $50,595,260 between July 1, 1998, and June 30, 1999. That figure is 7.4 percent higher than the previous year's total of $47.1 million.
"Awards came in at a rate of about three a day, and about three proposals went out daily," said William Clark, director of UCSC's Office of Sponsored Projects. "It was the busiest year yet."
The campus processed a total of 635 awards in 1998-99, compared to 612 in 1997-98. Principal funders included the National Science Foundation ($9.0 million), the National Institutes of Health ($7.8 million), the U.S. Department of Education ($4.8 million), the U.S. Department of Energy ($2.6 million), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ($2.4 million).
Eight different departments or research groups at UCSC brought in more than $2 million each in contracts and grants funding. They are biology ($8.0 million), Institute of Marine Sciences ($7.3 million), education ($6.4 million), chemistry ($5.2 million), Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics ($2.5 million), computer engineering ($2.3 million), Institute of Tectonics ($2.3 million), and computer science ($2.0 million).
The largest awards were received for research in the areas of cultural diversity and second-language learning, language learning in science education, particle physics, coastal marine ecology, and computer networking.