By Matthew Keck —

The University of Louisville announced its most successful year of securing research funding since 2012 on July 18. The Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation (EVPRI) showed preliminary numbers that U of L faculty received $152 million in competitive awards last fiscal year. This is a $14 million increase from the last year.

The EVPRI is responsible for this increase. “We provided grant writing and preparation support on a select number of grants, which increased the competitiveness of some grant applications,” said Robert Keynton, U of L’s interim executive vice president for research and innovation.

From 2018 to 2019, U of L conducted research on e-cigarettes, gum disease, robots and sexual assault. The grants received made this type of research possible for the university.

“This is great news for our community and those touched by U of L’s research in medicine, education, engineering, art and countless other disciplines,” Keynton said. “Our faculty work tirelessly to secure the funding needed to explore, test and translate that research, so it can change, improve and even save lives.”

Among the projects that received grants:

  • $18.1 million/5 years from the National Institutes of Health for a biomedical research center. Professor Nigel Cooper in Anatomical Science/Neurobiology runs the center. The main purpose of the center is to build a capacity for bioinformatics to serve the needs of Kentucky genomics researchers. Bioinformatics is a field that develops software to better understand biological data.
  • $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a small additive manufacturing platform using microrobots and 3D printing. Speed School of Engineering professor Dan Popa secured the grant. Popa directs the Next Generation Systems robotics lab.
  • $1.5 million from the Kentucky Department of Education to support systems for improving students’ academic and behavioral outcomes in every Kentucky school district. College of Education and Human Development faculty Terry Scott received the grant.

To help U of L stay competitive in research fields the EVPRI plans to continue support of the internal grant programs in place. Additionally, they plan to add a new program to support multidisciplinary team projects across the university.

All of the research U of L departments did were funded by grants. U of L faculty received a preliminary total of 950 grants from federal and state governments along with private sources. Keynton said that the U of L School of Medicine received the majority of extramural funding.

Photo Courtesy of The University of Louisville