Sara Gould arrives at work on the second floor of the El Centro building in Kansas City, Kan., to review data from her research on early childhood language development. Gould, a fifth-year graduate student, is a graduate research assistant at the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project. The project is one of the 13 research centers associated with the Institute for Life Span Studies. And it isn’t costing the University a dime. The Juniper Gardens Children’s Project is 100 percent externally funded, with the majority of its funds coming from the federal government.

Without federal funds, this program would not exist, and an estimated 1,200 infants and toddlers might not receive help.

There are 23 total projects at the children’s center and they are all funded externally from the University. The grants that support them range from $10,000 to $10 million.

Hundreds of research projects like this are being conducted every day at the University.

They are all made possible by grants from sources like institutions, corporations and the U.S. government, which contributes about 60 percent of all research funds at the University.

Gould is working on a federally funded project to promote language and literacy in infants and toddlers with disabilities. She is planning to visit the homes of families who have children with disabilities. During the visit, Gould will consult and coach parents on how to implement helpful strategies that will help their children develop normal language abilities.

Projects like the one Gould worked on helped the University move from 45th to 44th place in a ranking of science and engineering research spending, according to new data from the National Science Foundation. The ranking measures spending at universities, with first place awarded to the highest spender.

Kevin Boatright, director of communications for the office of research and graduate studies, said the increase showed that KU researchers had secured more funding than last year from government and institutional sources.

The leading sources of funding for the University were the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Departments of Education, Energy and Health and Human Services.

Last year, state funds accounted for 24 percent of the University’s research budget, and grants or contracts accounted for 20 percent. For every dollar of state funding the University received, it created three dollars of other revenue, such as grants and contracts supporting KU research.

Spending from all grants and contracts totaled more than $195 million last year 2007 fiscal year, an increase of about $5 million from 2005.

The federal government is the largest source of funding for academic research and development. It has accounted at least 60 percent of all research spending most years since 1972.

Provost Richard Lariviere said it was remarkable for the University to have moved up in spite of the nation’s economic downturn.

Lariviere said the competitiveness of the research programs at the University accounted for its resilience during a time when federal support was down. Research related to cancer, bio-materials, education, disabilities, climate change and drug discovery contributed to the University’s success.

Lariviere said he was confident that the future of the research programs at the University was safe because the research met the needs of society, even though the government had fewer grant dollars to award and more applications for those dollars.

Steve Warren, vice provost for research and graduate studies, said the University averaged 1,600 funded projects at any given time. He said the projects varied in size and scope but were equally important. He also said the overall number of projects demonstrated a strong public interest in the work the University was doing.

Warren said the effect of the research on the major challenges facing the world was more important than the number of research dollars granted to the University.

He said research like that being done by KU faculty and students was key to the future international economic competitiveness of the U.S.

John Columbo, interim director of the Institute for Life Span Studies, said the decrease in federal funding had created a backlog of research proposals that could not be financially supported. He said KU researchers had often moved themselves to the front of that line by persevering and continually revising and resubmitting proposals

— — Edited by Kelsey Hayes