UC San Diego Received $1.37 Billion in External Funding During Last Fiscal Year

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The University of California San Diego received a record-breaking $1.37 billion in total research and philanthropic funding during fiscal year 2017-18. The funding drives impactful research to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues and supports other important initiatives including student support, faculty recruitment, campus improvements and more.

UC San Diego’s external research and philanthropic funding totals during the last fiscal year both set records. The campus raised a total of $312 million in philanthropic support—a record for any San Diego institution of higher education. This includes $60 million in nongovernmental grants and $252 million in private gifts. The campus also received a record $1.12 billion in external funding, which includes support from organizations such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. This total also reflects $60 million in nongovernmental grants, however these grants are accounted for only once in the overall funding total.

“Support totaling $1.37 billion in one year is more than just a number. It is a testament to the excellent research and education taking place on this campus,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “This funding ensures that we can continue our quest to find cures for the world’s most debilitating diseases, address climate change and global security, and ensure that deserving first-generation college students can afford to attend UC San Diego.”

Last year, the largest source of charitable gifts was private and family foundations, many managed or directed by alumni, which gave $162 million, or 52 percent of gifts. Sixty percent of philanthropic contributions were designated for campus departments—fueling new programs, centers and initiatives within UC San Diego’s academic divisions.

With his foundation, UC San Diego alumnus Taner Halicioğlu donated $75 million to the campus, establishing the newly opened Halicioğlu Data Science Institute. The new institute builds on the university’s strengths of multidisciplinary collaboration and data science, allowing researchers across campus to incorporate data science into their respective disciplines to better understand and make predictions about the world around us—from addressing some of the world’s biggest security challenges to fueling personalized medicine.

The campus’s $312 million in philanthropic support over the last fiscal year contributed toward the university’s $2 billion Campaign for UC San Diego fundraising goal. Total campaign funding since 2012 has surpassed $1.73 billion as of Oct. 2018.

“We are so grateful to our generous friends, alumni, foundations and corporations who are continuing to drive UC San Diego’s excellence as one of the world’s top research universities,” added Khosla.

Last year, research funding from federal agencies totaled $681 million, with $422 million coming from the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes the National Institutes of Health). Other significant funding includes $98 million from the Department of Defense and nearly $87 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The State of California provided nearly $50 million in funding—a 56 percent increase over last year’s amount of $31.7 million.

Health Sciences, which includes the School of Medicine and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, received the largest amount of sponsored research funding, with $686 million. Multidisciplinary research, conducted across academic divisions on campus, accounted for 26 percent of total sponsored research, earning $241 million.

One such grant totaled $18 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to fund a clinical trial for a novel combination drug therapy for B-cell cancers. The trial is headed by Thomas Kipps, MD, PhD, deputy director of research at the Moores Cancer Center, in collaboration with colleagues at the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health. Kipps is hopeful that this research may “allow patients to achieve complete remission and stop therapy altogether.”

“Today’s most challenging problems require the expertise and cross-collaboration of researchers from across disciplines,” said Sandra A. Brown, vice chancellor for Research Affairs. “This approach of bringing together faculty from different research areas has allowed us to explore new frontiers of research, from artificial intelligence and personalized medicine, to developing new technologies to study the mind and brain.”