Cu Research Riding High on Record Funds

The University of Colorado at Boulder brought in nearly $260 million of sponsored research in fiscal 2004, a record and up almost $10 million over the previous year.

For research scientists like Ted Scambos, a glaciologist, that means more than $4 million toward continued work using satellites to study sea ice and the Antarctic coastline.

But it means funds for five graduate and post-doctorate students who help out with the research work at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Nearly 80 percent of the research money came from the federal government, and three agencies were responsible for about half the total: NASA and its affiliates, Department of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation.

NASA, the Jet Propulsion Lab and the Space Telescope Science Institute together accounted for $49.5 million.

That included $17.5 million for a Boulder-built ultraviolet imaging spectrograph that has been sending back images of Saturn’s rings from aboard the Cassini spacecraft.

“Space research is very expensive,” explained CU planetary scientist Larry Esposito.

As a statewide university system, CU ranked 10th in the nation among institutions with the largest amount of federal research and development expenditures in fiscal year 2002.