UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State’s expenditures on research and development totaled about $804 million for the year ending June 30, 2011, up 3 percent from the previous year, noted Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School Henry C. Foley in a report to the University’s Board of Trustees today (Sept. 9).
Research and development spending has increased an average of $25.7 million annually since fiscal 1992, when it totaled $290 million, Foley said.
He indicated that an important factor in attracting funding, as well as in recruiting the most talented graduate students and faculty, is Penn State’s emphasis on interdisciplinary research, involving a variety of academic disciplines. The Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment, for example, include faculty and students from a dozen different academic colleges and schools across the University. The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences involve at least seven colleges and schools, and the Institute for Cyber Sciences involves nine.
Penn State’s strength in interdisciplinary research is reflected in its leadership of the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy-Efficient Buildings, a recently launched U.S. Department of Energy initiative that involves 11 universities and 11 other entities.
The federal government provided about 60 percent of Penn State’s research funding in 2010-11, according to Foley. The second largest source was private grants and contracts, totaling about 19 percent.
Nearly half the federal support was directed to defense-related research and development, building on a tradition begun in 1946 when what is today the Applied Research Laboratory undertook underwater acoustics investigations for the Navy. Defense research involves collaborative work among at least nine major Penn State academic units, Foley noted.