Message from the Vice President
Obviously, it’s been a very different and difficult year for people and businesses in Montana and across the country. Research and creative activities at UM have been affected, but fortunately we were not hit as hard as universities in other states. Because the pandemic hit Washington state prior to coming to Montana, we were able to prepare and minimize impacts to our researchers and scholars. In this issue of Vision magazine, you will see a variety of projects that highlight how our faculty and students continue to work during the pandemic.
In spite of the problems created by COVID-19, research at the University continues to grow. We track several metrics regarding our growth. Two important metrics are the total dollar amount of new research awards, which is a leading indicator of research growth, and the amount of dollars expended on research in a given year.
For both of those metrics, the University exceeded $100 million for the first time in its history. Our official number for fiscal year 2019 is $104.7 million in research expenditures. That growth was across the board in terms of the colleges and departments that earned funding.
Among some of the larger awards were $6 million from the National Science Foundation to the Flathead Lake Biological Station’s Robert Hall to improve understanding of biological data, as well as a $1.3 million award from NSF to the Department of Computer Science’s Doug Brinkerhoff to study the melting of one of Alaska’s most iconic glaciers.
A number of the larger awards have been in health and medicine. Earlier this year, we announced a five-year, $10.75 million National Institutes of Health grant to establish the Center for Population Health Research with principal investigator Curtis Noonan, as well as another $2.5 million NIH grant to improve the efficiency of COVID-19 vaccines from Jay Evans’ research group. We recently received notice of a $2.4 million award from the Office of Naval Research for prevention of hearing loss among sailors and Marines for Monica Serban’s lab.
Finally, we just announced the largest single research award in the history of UM: a $33.4 million NIH grant for the development and clinical trials of opioid vaccines involving research from Evans, Kendal Ryter and David Burkhart. The first few months of this fiscal year indicate continued strong growth of the research enterprise at the University of Montana.
I hope you enjoy this year’s Vision magazine. As the nation slowly begins to pull out of the pandemic, rest assured that your University is committed to working on problems of national interest and local impact. As always, GO GRIZ!
