SDSU buoyed by record-breaking grant funding as it reopens this fall
San Diego State University (SDSU) announced recently that in line with the SDSU Flex plan, the university will offer 200+ in-person courses while all other courses will be offered virtually. The majority of research that may be conducted virtually will continue online, the university said.
In related news, SDSU researchers received $144.4 million in grant funding for 2019-20, reportedly the fourth-highest in university history.
A record 1,251 proposals were submitted by the university’s research community to over 300 sponsors. More than 750 awards were received by 307 investigators.
“I am proud of our highly accomplished researchers. They are resilient and tireless in their drive to make meaningful contributions to our community and the world,” said SDSU President Adela de la Torre in the statement.
Highlights include:
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- The National Institutes of Health awarded $31.9 million for a total of 89 awards, a 33% increase over the previous year.
- NIH grants will support a range of research, from cancer to suicide prevention interventions for LGBTQ youth.
- The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a record $15.7 million to SDSU — $6.4 million over the previous year’s awards.
- NSF awarded two prestigious CAREER awards of nearly $1 million each to faculty, as well as 13 competitive graduate fellowships, and supported several collaborative research projects.
- Twenty-three grants received in 2019-20 exceeded $1 million, with 13 of them garnering more than $2 million.
- Research was sponsored by other federal agencies, including NASA, and the energy, defense, and education departments as well as the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
- Last year, 430 students presented their research at the Student Research Symposium.
- Faculty and student researchers traveled to locations such as the Arctic, to explore the impact of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Closer to home, they focused on using local creeks as outdoor labs to study wildfires, water quality, invasive species and emergency management.
- They discovered ways to make deep brain stimulation safer with carbon electrodes that fared better than metal electrodes when embedded in the brain; and studied migrant trauma and cancer care in the border region of Imperial Valley.
- 20 faculty-led research projects were selected to advance through the SDSU Big Ideas selection process. Through the initiative, the university will attract transformative public and private funding while leveraging the distinctive strengths of faculty scholarship and research.
(Photo credit: SDSU’s main facade is by Wikipedia User:Geographer – Self-photographed, CC BY 1.0)
