By Kara Gavin
Health System Public Relations
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have nearly doubled funding awards for medical research at the Medical School in the past 11 years, making the school ninth in the nation and third among public universities in total grants from the NIH.
The NIH awarded a record $156.5 million to Medical School investigators in fiscal year 1999, up from $136.2 million in 1998 and $79.7 million in 1989. The school ranked 10th among NIH-funded institutions in both 1998 and 1989.
Last year, the allocations funded 451 individual research awards—the sixth largest total in the nation. Training grants, fellowships, research and development contracts and other awards also are included in the total.
“As we celebrate our school’s 150th anniversary, we are excited by the prospect of the new knowledge and therapies that will surely arise from this unprecedented funding level for our faculty,” says Dean Allen Lichter. “The NIH’s support for research at the U-M and throughout the nation, and the American people’s support for increased NIH appropriations in Congress will help provide for the health of future generations.”
Lichter attributes the steady rise in the U-M’s NIH funding to the research faculty’s productivity and responsiveness to national medical needs.
Not only are the NIH awards a majority of the Medical School’s external funding; they also make up a large percentage of the University’s awarded NIH and total research funds.
Medical School NIH awards make up nearly 68 percent of all NIH funding at the U-M, helping to make the University sixth in NIH award totals at higher education institutions in the nation.
When all sources of funding—including state and other federal agencies, corporations and foundations—are tallied, Medical School researchers were awarded $204.6 million during the University’s fiscal year 1999, more than 40 percent of the University’s $480.1 million in awards in 1999.
