FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS — The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis has released funding results for fiscal year 2016 showing research awards campuswide totaled $428.9 million, a $40.5 million increase over 2015.
Counting only non-IU School of Medicine awards, the campus received $67.2 million in research awards in 2016, compared to $58.1 million in 2015, a 16 percent increase.
The increase in research awards reflects, in part, the support of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research to advance innovative research and creative activity.
Funding awards for 2016 show an increase in National Science Foundation awards, one of the office’s strategic goals. NSF funding rose from $5.2 million in 2015 to $7.9 million in 2016.
NSF awards in 2016 included $200,022 for a research team led by the School of Engineering and Technology to overcome problems with one approach to increasing the capacity of lithium ion batteries.
Another National Science Foundation grant will enable researchers at IUPUI to develop a Breathalyzer-type device to detect the onset of hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar episodes, in people with diabetes.
The funding awards underscore efforts by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research to develop and expand research programs that address important national and global needs and support economic development of Indiana and the nation.
Other external funding supported research to:
- Develop information-based tools to help primary care providers improve care for patients with chronic pain, a condition that affects 100 million Americans at a cost of $630 billion annually in health care costs and lost worker productivity.
- Study the use of the electronic dental record to evaluate the outcome of dental treatments.
- Study nonmilitary applications of unmanned aerial systems (drone) technology, such as remote imaging for water quality, mosquito habitat mapping, disaster preparation, precision agriculture, and the utilization and analysis of data collected with unmanned aerial systems.
The office helps stimulate faculty research efforts through internal funding programs, events, workshops and proposal development assistance, said Etta Ward, executive director of research development.
“Our office provides proposal-writing seminars that lead to actual submissions, not just generic proposal writing,” Ward said. “The seminars take the form of a series of sessions in which researchers come together to discuss specific external funding mechanisms, engage in proposal-writing exercises, review each other’s proposals and prepare for submission to the external funding agencies.”
The office also focuses its efforts to secure awards through large groups like the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute to assist faculty in pursuing funding opportunities through organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts and private funding sources.
The efforts of one group assembled by the office led to IUPUI becoming the recipient of the first scaffold-free bioprinting robot installed in an academic institution in the United States. The multidisciplinary group has begun exploring a new center of excellence targeting research and development using 3-D printing and bioprinting. This group involves active collaborations among imaging, computational mechanics, biomaterials, orthopedics, cell biology, vascular biology, regeneration, otolaryngology, nanosystems and creative activities in the arts. This has opened up potential partnerships with local 3-D manufacturing partners and with the orthopedic industry.
The office also helps faculty connect to internal sources of seed funding to launch new areas of research or new collaborations. “Our faculty have an abundance of ideas and expertise,” said Simon Atkinson, interim vice chancellor for research. “Our office encourages faculty to take advantage of the wealth of resources available in all the schools on the Indianapolis campus to take their projects to the next level.”
The efforts of the office don’t stop with assisting faculty to secure awards.
The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research has staff who help connect researchers to industry partners. It also helps faculty and student researchers understand the process to protect and further develop research that has commercial potential and serves as a liaison to the Indiana University Research and Technology Corporation, a not-for-profit agency that assists IU faculty and researchers in realizing the commercial potential of their discoveries.
“Our office works hard to make IUPUI the best possible place for the outstanding faculty, students and staff who are the ones making discoveries that will shape our future,” Atkinson said. “The success in securing research funding is just one measure of the vibrancy of the research enterprise here.”