A Letter from University of Maryland Vice President for Research Gregory F. Ball
With the new academic year now in full swing, I am excited to share some news that should make us all tremendously proud. The University of Maryland had a record-breaking research year, bringing in a total of $834 million in awards for research and other sponsored activities in fiscal year 2023. This is the highest total ever recorded by our College Park campus, an increase of 23% — more than $157 million — over the previous year.
This historic achievement is thanks to the excellence and commitment of our faculty, staff, and students, and further advances our reputation as a premier global research university. While there are many indicators of the strength of a research enterprise, these numbers reflect the high quality research and innovation ecosystem we have established on our campus, and the value that funding organizations see in the work we produce and the services we provide. A number of factors contributed to this increase, including strategic partnerships with government agencies and labs, peer institutions, and industry; seed grant programs that spur new ideas and innovation in emerging areas; proposal support; mentoring; and interdisciplinary collaborations designed to tackle complex problems.
Among the record-breaking efforts: a cooperative agreement with NASA to address the pressing challenges of global sustainability, the creation of a new institute supported by the National Science Foundation to advance trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), a cooperative agreement with the Army Research Lab to improve decisions made by humans and autonomous systems, support from the Department of Energy to develop more efficient electric vehicle batteries, and notable awards from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supporting digital humanities, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supporting environmental justice , and the John Templeton Foundation supporting quantum thermodynamics.
I would like to thank our faculty, staff, and students for their hard work, creativity, and ingenuity that made this achievement possible. I encourage everyone to read our Research Roundup newsletter to learn more about University of Maryland achievements in research and innovation each week (subscribe to the Roundup here). I look forward to another exciting year, as our researchers fearlessly take on the Grand Challenges of our time to improve human lives and benefit our society.
Sincerely,
Gregory F. Ball
Vice President for Research
He/Him/His