UCLA is closing the 2009-2010 fiscal year with more than $1 billion in research funding for all departments across the university.
This is a more than $60 million increase from the funding received in the 2008-2009 year, and more than the university has ever received for research. UC Berkeley received more than $1.3 billion in the same year.
Research at UCLA that reaches out to experts from different departments and disciplines provides more opportunities for funding, said Roberto Peccei, Vice Chancellor for research at UCLA.
“The collaborative atmosphere at UCLA and the fact that people really enjoy and participate in interdisciplinary research is also what has helped us attract all of this money,” Peccei said. “There is more money for precisely that kind of research.”
Because this kind of research cuts across different academic fields, it is possible to use the perspectives of those in different departments to form unique solutions to research problems, said Rhonda Voskuhl, a professor of neurology at UCLA.
Voskuhl, director of the multiple sclerosis program in the school of medicine, received nearly $3 million to fund the Marylin Hilton Multiple Sclerosis Achievement Center.
The center is looking at departments outside of its own to provide better treatment and care for its patients.
“When you put people with different expertises together, you can come up with things that no one else has come up with before,” Voskuhl said.
The center combines aspects of the school of medicine and the department of neurology to provide services like occupational therapy and support groups for those suffering from multiple sclerosis, Voskuhl said.
UCLA’s interdisciplinary research environment attracts donors and foundations looking to fund research that has not been done at any other institution, Voskuhl said.
“We work together to create (projects) that are really competitive,” she said.
Donald Kohn, a professor in the departments of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and pediatrics, is also working on a project that looks to many other departments within the medical school to provide innovative treatment for patients of sickle cell disease.
Kohn received more than $9 million in April to implement stem cell gene therapy to treat sickle cell disease, a method that has never been used before in this manner, he said.
Kohn and his team work in conjunction with different research cores at the medical school. These cores specialize in DNA sequencing and micro-array technology, making the data more accessible to other departments that need it for research, Kohn said.
Along with making research more efficient, this kind of collaboration also positively affects the amount of funding given to a project, Kohn said.
“People really work together,” Kohn said. “(That) makes them able to do new things that wouldn’t happen at other centers.”
The record-breaking amount of funding the university received this year is an indicator of its continuing prestige in all types of research fields, Peccei said.
“You don’t get money unless you’re really good at what you do. It’s not the only way you can judge the faculty, but it’s one way to tell that the faculty is doing really well,” Peccei said.