UC Davis researchers pulled in a record $246 million in contracts and grants last year, increasing the total by 26 percent over the previous academic year. "All the credit for last year's numbers goes to the campus research community," said Kevin Smith, vice chancellor for research. "They did a phenomenal job in the competition for funding. Once again our faculty has shown that our campus is moving forward in the research arena at a gratifying pace." Overall, the nine campuses in the University of California system experienced a 9 percent increase in research funding over the previous year. UC Davis' 26 percent increase was the largest increase in the system. UC Davis had the fifth largest total in the system. UCLA had the most followed by UC San Diego, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco. The campus received several very large awards from private sources: The School of Veterinary Medicine was given $10.7 million by the Wayne and Gladys Valley Foundation; Mary Haan, director of the Center for Aging and Health in the School of Medicine, received a $7 million award from Wyeth-Ayerst Labs; and the medical school dean's office got $5 million from The California Endowment. Those awards were exceptionally large, but, according to Smith, not surprising. "The campus's collective expertise is extraordinary, and we're reaching the point where we should begin to expect exceptional things to happen every year," he said. Those three large awards contributed to a nearly 74 percent increase in research funding to the campus from the private sector. Private-sector funding for contracts and grants, which often fluctuates unpredictably from year to year, totaled about $47.6 million in 1997-98 and $82.8 million in 1998-99. Funding from the state of California increased by almost 36 percent last year. Federal research awards, always the largest source of support for the campus's research, increased by about 8 percent. Those numbers are indicative of a continuing trend in academic research funding. Even though funding from all three sectors is increasing, funding from the private sector is increasing at a faster rate than funding from both the state and the federal government. According to the National Science Foun-dation, in 1953 the federal government sponsored 53.9 percent of the nation's research and development, and in 1998 (based on preliminary numbers) the federal government sponsored only 30.2 percent. The decrease in the federal share of the nation's research and development costs corresponds with a decrease in defense spending. In 1953, 48 percent of the nation's research and development expenditures were related to defense; in 1998 only 16.4 percent were defense related. Federal sponsorship of health- and space-related research has increased in the same time period. According to Smith, "Almost all of our colleges, divisions and schools demonstrated very significant increases in extramural support, with the exception of my own College of Letters and Science, which saw a drop in funding from $13.3 million to $10.8 million. The schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine and the colleges of Engineering and of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences deserve special recognition for their efforts." The School of Medicine experienced the largest increase, garnering about $65.6 million -- more than any other school, college or division --compared with the previous year's total of $47.8 million. The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences received $49.5 million last year. The School of Veterinary Medicine received $38 million. The College of Engineering received $26.8 million, and the campus's Organized Research Units won a total of $32.3 million. But, according to Smith, the campus's success in research isn't only told by the numbers. "The competition for funding in the humanities is particularly fierce," Smith said, "and the campus can be justifiably proud of researchers like Martha Macri and Samuel Armistead --even though their National Endowment for the Humanities awards are for thousands rather than millions of dollars." The other campuses ranged from UC San Francisco's decrease in funding of 9 percent through UC Berkeley's 20 percent increase. UC Davis researchers not only won a record number of awards last year, but also submitted a record-breaking number of proposals --more than $1 billion, which means the campus should do well in the competition for awards in the coming year, according to Smith.