Notre Dame received $128 million in research funding for fiscal year 2016, the second highest total in school history, according to a University press release.
This year was topped only by the 2015 fiscal year, in which the University received $133 million in research funds.
“The research, scholarship and creativity of Notre Dame faculty continues to make a difference in multiple ways across our country and around the world,” University President Fr. John Jenkins said in the release. “The growth in external funding is a tangible testimony to the importance of their work.”
According to the release, funded research projects cover a variety of disciplines, including energy, economics and everything in between.
For example, Alan Seaubaugh, chair professor in the College of Engineering, and his research team won a $5.8 million award to support the Center for Low Energy Systems (LEAST), a Notre Dame-led initiative working to devise new concepts for energy-efficient devices to reduce power in electronic systems.
For his research on advancing the empirical study of global religion in mainstream academia, sociology professor Christian Smith received a $4.9 million award from the Templeton Religion Trust.
Faculty from the College of Science and College of Engineering — led by Frank Collins and Scott Emrich — received a $2.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support Vectorbase, a bioinformatics database that provides web-based resources to the scientific community on invertebrate vectors of human pathogens.
The University supports research in more than 20 facilities and in each of Notre Dame’s colleges, according to Notre Dame Research’s website.
This year, 57 percent of awards came from federal funding, along with 16 percent from foundations and 15 percent from industry sponsors, according to the release. Local and state governments, foreign entities and nonprofit organizations also sponsored various research projects.
“This was another strong year for Notre Dame Research and it reflects the talents of our faculty and students,” Robert Bernhard, vice president for research, said in the release. “Due to their hard work and great achievements, we are celebrating another successful year for research funding and finished strong with the highest month of funding — nearly $23 million in June — in the University’s history.”
