Университет Калифорнии в Сан-Диего получил рекордные $1,8 млрд грантов, но ученые опасаются нестабильности финансирования

In the past fiscal year, UC San Diego researchers brought in $1.8 billion in federal, state, industry, non-profit and philanthropic research grants — its highest cumulative totals to date. But behind the scenes, optimism appears measured. While UCSD has never brought in such high totals, with 62% coming from federal sources, it also saw the number of new awards decline by 179 last year. Including both new and continuing grants, UCSD has 5,591 active awards. Corinne Peek-Asa, vice chancellor for research and innovation at UCSD, says that while the university’s ability to compete for grant funding is strong and trends have been “overwhelmingly positive” over time, the fewer number of new awards show that opportunities to receive funding “still remain tight.” She added that the demand for UCSD research “remains strong” but that “the funding environment is becoming more volatile and more competitive. Researchers are impacted by uncertainty in the stability of the funding pipeline, which in turn disrupts continuity in discovery and innovation, as well as disrupting the talent pipeline. We recognize that many faculty are understandably concerned about shifting federal policies and the uncertainty those changes can generate for grant opportunities. It is impossible to operate a leading research team without predictable funding.” UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla also described the grant funding landscape as “a time of disruption and uncertainty” while praising researchers’ ability to secure investments. Thus, Peek-Asa says the university’s focus includes securing funding from various sources. Several award-winners at UCSD brought in over $15 million each for their projects from private, state and federal entities, according to UC San Diego Today. The biggest winner was a lab led by Shaochen Chen, a 3D bioprinting expert and professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. Chen’s lab was awarded up to $25.8 million over five years from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, to create a fully functional, patient-specific 3D-printed liver. ARPA-H, created in 2022 with a $1 billion congressional appropriation and signed into law by former President Joe Biden, is modeled on a similar federal agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which has long pursued leap-forward breakthroughs by funding big, but uncertain, ideas. Just as DARPA’s long-term research funding over many decades led to major gains, including a decentralized communications system that evolved into the Internet, the idea is to fund goals located slightly over the horizon. With that funding, UCSD researchers will tailor bio-printed livers to mirror each patient’s anatomy and physiology. Another big winner was the UCSD Center for Community Health’s Refugee and Immigrant Health Unit, located in the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute. The Refugee and Immigrant Health Unit is the leader behind a $19.7 million California Department of Social Services effort that aims to support community organizations that serve refugees and immigrant families. UCSD’s unit in particular will serve as a statewide coordinating organization, working with school districts, community groups and regional partners. The last project to receive a $15 million-plus grant was to further explore parts of the ocean that were previously out of reach, to be executed by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Funding came from a new private foundation founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen’s estate, the Fund for Science and Technology. In particular, these funds support Margaret Leinen, Scripps’ director emeritus, in analyzing DNA fragments shed by organisms into their surrounding environment, called eDNA. It will also provide a boost to Deep Argo float models that explore deeper parts of the ocean and technology that can study melting rates of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, the latter of which is in early stages. Future studies will not only gather information in areas that scientific activity is lacking, but also potentially offer insight into how the ocean is evolving. A lesser grant recipient was the newly launched nonpartisan research hub, the Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections. The roughly $2.5 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trust’s Election Trust Initiative is intended to strengthen confidence in U.S. elections through research and partnerships with election officials across the nation. The center’s co-directors are UCSD’s Department of Political Science professor Thad Kousser and associate professor of political science Lauren Prather. The Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections continues the work of the university’s Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research, which Kousser co-directs, as well as the Future of Democracy Initiative, of which Prather is a member. — The San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer Paul Sisson contributed to this report.