Recovery Act gives boost to Vanderbilt's scientific and medical research

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By Vanderbilt University
October 13, 2009

Since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was signed into law in February, it has given a significant boost to scientific and medical research at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The Recovery Act committed $787 billion in federal funds to help stimulate the national economy. From this, 2.5 percent was earmarked for support of scientific and medical research.

As of Sept. 30, Vanderbilt researchers had received 180 grants totaling more than $74 million in first-year funding. Of those, 165 grants were awarded by the National Institutes of Health, 14 were awarded by the National Science Foundation and one came from Health and Human Services. About one-third of these grants support new projects while two-thirds provide supplemental funding for existing grants. Most are supporting medically related projects in areas ranging from pharmacology to pediatrics to neuroscience and cancer biology, but a significant number of grants are going to projects in other fields including chemistry, physics, astronomy, biological sciences and computer science.

This represents 45 percent of the Recovery Act grants from NIH and NSF awarded to research universities, medical centers and companies in the state. In addition, Tennessee state universities have received $169 million in funding (as of Aug. 19) from the Department of Education’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund for which private universities like Vanderbilt do not qualify.