About University Research Administration
University of Chicago Funding Profile
(for Sponsored Research and other Sponsored Programs)
University Research Administration produces fiscal year-end reports summarizing proposal and award activity by Division/School/Center and for the University as a whole. URA's Funding Report includes proposals and awards made during the period July 1, 2006-June 30, 2007. Because sponsors sometimes award multi-year projects with one funding action, or sometimes make awards for two consecutive budget periods during one University fiscal year, these award figures may be bumpy when considered from year to year. The significance of these data is not so much in their year-to-year comparisons but in the longitudinal patterns of growth, decline and stability.
An example is the notable increase in foundation funding, from $27 million to $40 million, an apparent increase of almost 50%. Four multi-year awards of $2 million or more were booked in FY07 from the Templeton Foundation, although one of the awards does not start until March, 2008. Three of the Templeton Foundation awards were in SSD; the other was in GSB. The three Templeton awards plus another sizeable multi-year award from the Spencer Foundation helped vault SSD to a 67% increase in funding, from $12 Million to $20 Million.
Among the significant new awards in BSD is the first year of a new 5-year award for Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Breast Cancer for $2.30 million and a 5-year award of $5.25 million from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for new research program Peptide and Small Molecule Therapeutics for Hematologic Malignancies. The latter award contributed to a sizeable jump from $18 million to $31 million in Other Nonfederal category of awards. This category is made up primarily of the voluntary health sponsors. There were nine awards of over $500,000 from the Other Nonfederal sponsors and an increase of the absolute number of awards from 306 in FY06 to 371 in FY07.
Sometimes the timing of continuing annual awards from the sponsor can skew the FY reports. For example, the Department of Education funded several years of the Area Center for South Asian Languages in the Humanities Division in FY07. The Department of Education also funded a large multi-year research award of $1.84 million to the Consortium on Chicago School Research for a Comprehensive Examination of the Effects of District-Wide High School Curriculum Reform on Academic Achievement and Attainment in Chicago.
FY07 merits special recognition as it marks the achievement of over $400 million in sponsored awards for the first time. Sponsored awards for FY07 total $407.5 million, approximately 4.0% growth from last year’s awarded dollars. Federal funds ($293.1M), which make up roughly 74% of awarded funds, fell 1.5% compared to Federal funding in FY06. The Federal reduction was due primarily to a drop in DHHS (predominantly NIH awards) from $213.3 million in FY06 to $201.8 million in FY07, although NSF funding also dropped from $54 million and 174 awards in FY06 to $50.8 million and 170 awards in FY07. The real growth was in Nonfederal awards increasing from $94 million to $114.4 million, with the most significant jump coming from the Foundation and Other Nonfederal awards described above.
Please recall that gifts, endowments and contributions from alumni and friends of the University are not administered through URA and are not included in these data.
The following tables and charts show performance data for fiscal year 2007 (July 1, 2006 - June 30, 2007).
- Awards by Agency - FY 2005 to FY 2007 (PDF)
- Proposals and Awards by Agency - FY 1992 to FY 2007 (PDF)
- Proposals and Awards by Division - Year-End Comparison (PDF)
- Proposals and Awards by Division - FY 1992 to FY 2007 (PDF)
- Proposals and Awards by Purpose - FY 2007 (PDF)
- Proposals and Awards - Direct and Indirect Costs - Year-End Comparison (PDF)
