University of Colorado Research money breaks record – Space studies get big piece of the $250 million pie

University of Colorado researchers are rolling in the green.

The school collected more than $250 million in research awards for fiscal year 2003, CU officials announced Tuesday.

By Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer

That sets a record, surpassing the $229 million the school brought in last year.

Chancellor Richard Byyny announced the new record during his State of the Campus Address on Tuesday afternoon.

"I think our future is really dependent on our ability to increase our fund-raising," he said.

Byyny said CU is succeeding on that front.

Over the last three decades, research funds have doubled about every seven years, he said. They broke the $200 million mark for the first time in 1998.

Much of the funding went to CU’s vaunted space programs. NASA and its subsidiaries gave the school $53 million. The College of Engineering and Applied Science received 446 grants worth a total of $37.5 million, while the department of aerospace engineering pulled in $11 million.

Departments in the College of Arts and Science pulled in $71 million, officials said. The biology department took in the biggest piece of that pie, with $15 million.

But other departments that don’t have anything to do with petri dishes or space exploration are also receiving money.

The Natural Hazards Center, which serves as a clearinghouse for research data on social, political, economic and physical consequences of disasters, both natural and man-made, brought in about $700,000, director Kathleen Tierney said.

Some of that money is being used to pay for researchers who have rushed to the East Coast to study "time sensitive" data on the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel, Tierney said.

Contact Ryan Morgan at [email protected] or (303) 473-1333.

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