For the first time in N.C. State history, faculty and institutions have garnered more than $304.5 million in sponsored awards from industries and the federal government.
The University matched its previous record for federal awards, which stands at $234 million, and set a new record of $35.8 million in industy awards, a gain of 40 percent from the previous record of $25.6 million.
“All of this is all the more impressive in times of flat or decreasing federal funding and is a great testament to the efforts and skill of our faculty, staff, and research support professionals,” said Terri Lomax, vice chancellor of the Office of Research, Innovation & Economic Development.
The University’s sponsored awards did decrease, however, during the federal sequester of 2012 since agencies were late in sending out calls for federal award proposals due to fear that sequestration would set in and they would receive cuts to their agencies, Lomax said.
“The faculty showed how resilient they are, and they are working harder and being more successful,” Lomax said.
This year, the University submitted a record number of proposals amounting to more than $1.32 billion, an increase of more than 25 percent from the previous record of $1.06 billion in 2010, which occurred at the peak of funding opportunities from the stimulus, according to Lomax.
“This level of activity bodes very well for future funding,” Lomax said.
Lomax said N.C. State has been working really hard on creating new industry partnerships. For example, the University’s relationship with the Eastman Chemical Center of Innovation on Centennial Campus provides funding for faculty members from multidisciplinary backgrounds including industrial design, chemical and biomolecular engineering, chemistry, forestry, textiles and materials science.
Lomax said the University is working to sign master agreements with companies to make it easier for them to fund programs on N.C. State’s campus.
“That way, they can just add a new task instead of just having to negotiate a whole new grant,” Lomax said.
Federal grants accounted for more than 93 percent of this past fiscal year’s sponsored grants. Lomax said N.C. State’s ability to attract federal grants can be attributed to the University’s eminent researchers who work on both fundamental and applied problems of interest to the federal government
“We have also been working at the University level to streamline our processes to make it as easy as possible to submit and manage grants,” Lomax said.
The proposal process begins when a federal agency, such as the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health, calls for proposals regarding a specific topic. Faculty members respond to the call by submitting a proposal about the important issue they would address and how they would go about doing it. There is then a review panel organized by the federal agency that ranks all the proposals received. If the rank is high enough, faculty receives funding, according to Lomax.
Lomax said she is optimistic about the possible continued rise in funding next year.
“I do expect it to increase next year because of the record in proposals submitted by our researchers this year, since it takes several months for agencies to evaluate them, so the funding often arrives in the next fiscal year,” Lomax said.
Funding has not yet begun for the NNSA Nuclear Nonproliferation grant and the DOE Next Generation Power Electronics National Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which may still increase this fiscal year’s sponsored award total by a significant amount, Lomax said.
