The University of California, Davis, received almost $679 million in research funds in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010. The total is a record for the campus and double what it was a decade ago.

"I congratulate the UC Davis faculty, staff and students on another record-breaking year. UC Davis continues to build on its strengths and create new opportunities to advance our quality of life, whether in biomedical research, agriculture, the environment or engineering," said Chancellor Linda Katehi. "We have enormous potential to build on these achievements and rise to even greater heights of distinction, scholarship and service."

UC Davis has seen a steady rise in research funding over the past decade, from $298 million in 2000-01, noted Vice Chancellor for Research Barry Klein.

"UC Davis researchers excel across a wide range of fields, making discoveries that will have a lasting impact on our quality of life," Klein said.

Katehi has made expansion of UC Davis' research enterprise a key goal in her vision for the campus. Three recent reports have underscored that goal and recommended next steps: the faculty "blue-ribbon" committees reports on research and technology transfer; and a report from the Washington Advisory Group, led by Eric Bloch, former director of the National Science Foundation.

All three recommended steps UC Davis can take to build on existing strengths, expand basic research and forge collaborations with industry that help move UC Davis research findings from the laboratory to the marketplace for the betterment of humankind.

Examples of grants awarded to UC Davis faculty in the past year include: $75 million over five years from the U.S. Agency for International Development to establish a network to detect and prevent diseases moving from wildlife to people; $125,000 from the charitable arm of the National Football League for research on new ways to repair knee injuries; a $4.4 million contract from the National Science Foundation to design a complex physics project in a South Dakota mine that will investigate fundamental questions about the nature of the universe, which may ultimately impact everything from communications to medical treatment; and nearly $12 million over two years to support a range of studies on the causes of autism at the UC Davis MIND Institute.

Almost two-thirds of the total -- $437 million -- came from the federal government, up from $329 million last year. The second largest amount, $60 million, came from the state of California, down from $113 million last year.

Other major sources of research funds included: businesses, $44 million; other institutions of higher education (principally subcontracts on other grants), $36 million; other UC campuses or the UC Office of the President, $23 million; foundations, $8.8 million; charities, $27 million; and other government sources (states other than California, cities and counties), $20 million.

The largest single source of federal funds was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, principally the National Institutes of Health, which provided $258 million, an increase of more than $60 million over the previous year. The National Science Foundation awarded $64 million, up from almost $50 million last year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided $36 million, up about $4 million.

Other federal award totals:

• Department of Energy, $19 million
• Department of Defense, $19 million
• State Department, $15 million
• Department of the Interior, $11 million
• Departments of Education, $3.5 million
• Department of Justice, $2.3 million
• Department of Commerce, $1.4 million
• Department of Transportation, $590,000
• National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities, $300,000

All federal sources provided increased funding over the previous year.

Research funds awarded to the UC Davis School of Medicine from all sources totaled $211 million, up from $175 million the previous year. The School of Veterinary Medicine also saw a jump in funds to $109 million from $71 million.

Other unit totals:

• College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, $108 million
• College of Biological Sciences, $62 million
• College of Engineering, $58 million
• Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, College of Letters and Sciences, $29 million
• Office of Research, $50 million (on behalf of interdisciplinary Organized Research Units such as the Bodega Marine Laboratory and the California National Primate Research Center)
• Division of Social Sciences, College of Letters and Science, $13 million
• Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, College of Letters and Science, $2 million
• University Extension, $12 million
• Division of Graduate Studies, $5.3 million
• School of Education, $4 million

The 2009-10 UC Davis research fund total includes from grants and contracts awarded to the university to support research, including grants from philanthropic foundations. It does not include private gifts, which are reported separately. Following nationally accepted guidelines, grants from philanthropic foundations also may be counted toward philanthropic totals. However, they are counted only once for university accounting purposes.

Much of the money awarded for research goes to salaries and wages of UC Davis employees, ranging from professors who are partly paid out of grants for time that they spend doing research, to adjunct faculty, technical staff, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students who are paid or receive stipends from grants and contracts.

Research awards include both the direct costs of research, such as salaries and laboratory supply costs, and "indirect" costs that are awarded by agencies to fund research infrastructure, such as upkeep and utility costs for research laboratories. Grants and contracts are awarded with strict conditions that typically bar use of the funds for purposes other than research.

Research funding totals were calculated on the basis of dollars transferred to the university during the 2009-10 fiscal year. Some agencies commit to funding multiyear projects but only actually fund one year at a time. In those cases, the grant is counted in annual increments in the year received. If the funding agency provides all of the funds up front, the funds are counted in the first year of funding but not in subsequent years.

According to a survey by the National Science Foundation, UC Davis ranked 17th in the nation in university research and development expenditures and fourth among University of California campuses in fiscal year 2007-8 (the most recent year for which figures are available).

Stimulus funds

UC Davis researchers were awarded $104 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act during fiscal year 2009-10. The largest single ARRA-funded project was $14.2 million to construct a center for research on respiratory diseases at the California National Primate Research Center.

Most ARRA awards funded grant proposals that were already pending or under review at federal granting agencies. While ARRA contributed to UC Davis research funds in 2009-10, some of these proposals may have been funded without ARRA support.