Federal research funding expected to get tougher

IOWA CITY - Uncertainty regarding federal funding for university research could lead to a rough few years, University of Iowa Vice President for Research Jordan Cohen told faculty leaders Tuesday.

Cohen updated the UI Faculty Senate on what university officials think is the outlook for federally-sponsored research, given current recommendations by President Barack Obama and discussions in Congress.

Much of the external funding outlook hinges on the discussion in Congress of discretionary spending versus deficit reduction, Cohen said.

“We're anticipating very difficult two to five years in research funding while the deficit reduction conversation takes place,” he said.

UI researchers and professors pulled in $466.5 million in external funding in 2009-10; 67 percent of the money that supports faculty research and scholarship at the UI comes from federal sources, Cohen said.

Of the federal money, the UI is highly dependent on the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services, with 75 percent of the UI's federal funding coming from those sources, Cohen said.

Looking at Washington's future research priorities for federal funding - the sciences, innovation, energy and climate, among others - UI officials want to focus more on areas where the university has not been as strong or as competitive for federal funding in the past, Cohen said. Officials hope to line up grant proposals earlier, so they can go through more vetting given how competitive it is, and do more grant-writing workshops on campus, he said.

“We aren't diversified in our funding and we need to become much more diverse in terms of our sources of federal funding,” he said.

Also at Tuesday's Faculty Senate meeting, it was Ed Dove's last meeting as senate president. Dove, a professor of biomedical engineering, becomes senate past president and Richard Fumerton, a philosophy professor who served the past year as vice president, is the new president. Linda Snetselaar, professor of epidemiology, was elected as vice president for next year, and Christina Bohannan, a law professor, was chosen as secretary.