By Izabela Zaluska
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences broke its previous record for new grant funding awarded in fiscal year 2024 with $31 million — a 28 percent increase from last fiscal year’s record of $24.2 million.
The total awarded research funds in FY 2024 were $73 million, which is the third highest year on record. Research funding proposed to agencies for the fiscal year totaled $94 million.
External funding at the University of Iowa overall totaled $683.8 million in FY 2024, which ended June 30. Several sources of federal and private funding trended up during this past fiscal year, including a significant uptick in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The college continues to see high interest from major agencies, including the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and other substantial federal funders.
"CLAS continues to see significant growth in our research enterprise, part of which is reflected in this record for new grant awards,” said Joshua Weiner, associate dean for research and infrastructure in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
CLAS faculty across various disciplines brought in substantial grants of $1 million or more, including:
$1.2 million NSF grant to further hearing aid research, Octav Chipara, Department of Computer Science
$1.7 million U.S. Department of Defense grant to study social media and national security, Brian Ekdale, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and Rishab Nithyanand, Department of Computer Science
$3.2 million NIH grant to further research on early parent-child relationships, Grazyna Kochanska, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
$3.7 million NIH grant to study heart health, Nate Jenkins, Department of Health and Human Physiology
Two NIH grants totaling $7.3 million, Bruce Bartholow, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
CLAS strategically invested in a centralized grant support staff starting in 2018. Since then, the CLAS Grant Support Office (GSO) has been instrumental in helping faculty apply for and receive larger, more competitive grants. GSO staff also support grant administration by helping researchers manage their grant financial and compliance requirements.
“Prior to the founding of our Grant Support Office in 2018, our total research funding averaged about $40 million per year,” Weiner said. “Since then, we have averaged $72 million per year, which demonstrates the importance of the pre- and post-award support the GSO provides.”
Weiner also highlighted increased communications, including CLAS Business Updates and CLAS Research Resource newsletter, as tools to help researchers, scholars, and artists find funding opportunities.
FY 2025, which began July 1, is already off to a strong start. CLAS researchers brought in $9.44 million in this first month, making it the second-best on record, topped only by FY 2023 when a major portion of the $115 million NASA TRACERS contract arrived.