MSU research continues to grow with increased funding
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Editor’s note: The headline on this article was changed to accurately reflect MSU’s increase in research funding.
Officials are looking at continued growth in research dollars awarded to MSU thanks to an $18 million increase compared to the previous fiscal year.
The university took in nearly $439 million in research awards during fiscal year 2010-11, attributed to MSU’s competitive faculty and their work, said J. Ian Gray, vice president for research and graduate studies.
Fiscal year 2009-10 brought in about $421 million to the university, according to President Lou Anna K. Simon’s State of the University Report and the Office of Planning and Budgets. MSU has been awarded more than $375 million in funding each year since the 2006-07 fiscal year.
“Add them together, (and) we’re establishing a framework for the university,” Gray said. “This comes at a time when federal money is tighter.”
Faculty and students are able to conduct research when they’re properly funded, he said, adding major sources of funding are secured through the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and others — including corporate, foundation and dwindling state support.
Funding does not come free, however, as efforts must be made to apply to grants, Gray said. But it starts with well-rounded faculty that include senior members with grants already achieved who can act as strong mentors of younger faculty to help push them for additional funding and research.
Karin Pfeiffer, an associate professor of kinesiology, said during her six years at MSU, her line of research has been measuring physical activity and determining ways to increase physical activity among children and adolescents.
Because of the obesity epidemic across the country, she said her work is necessary to help combat the issue.
“Even if we didn’t have obesity issues, interventions to increase activity are important in terms of reducing risks … of disease,” Pfeiffer said. “If you can’t measure (activity) very well, you don’t know their impacts (to improve health).”
Like life, Pfeiffer said funding for her research has ebbed and flowed; there are good times and sometimes things don’t go as planned.
She said she’s been content with funding to conduct her research, but those levels might change depending on factors, including the federal and state government’s resources and the number of people applying for a particular grant.
Robin Green, a biochemistry and biotechnology senior, currently works in a campus lab to study hydrogenases — enzymes that allow organisms to make hydrogen gas.
His lab’s efforts might one day provide an answer to alternative energy, Green said.
“(Research) has been the staple of my undergraduate career,” Green said. “My life would not have a direction that it has now. I wouldn’t be as excited to learn science and do science.”
