As President Barack Obama begins his 100th day in office on Wednesday, Dartmouth is poised to benefit from several of his early initiatives, most significantly funding for scientific research and construction through grants offered as part of the $787 billion federal stimulus package passed in February. The first Dartmouth professor to gain from the stimulus received funding on Tuesday, and many others are likely to receive grants throughout the spring and fall, according to College officials.
Risto Kauppinen, a visiting professor of radiology at Dartmouth Medical School, received funding from the National Center for Research Resources on Tuesday to purchase an experimental MRI machine to conduct cancer, cardiac and neuroscience research. The Center had denied his proposal one-and-a-half years ago, he said.
"Thanks to the stimulus package, more funds have been released and allocated for science, and the [National Center for Research Resources] has decided to reopen their call, and our proposals were lifted into the fundable category," Kauppinen said
Several other researchers whose projects were initially rejected may soon receive funding, according to Jill Mortali, director of Dartmouth's Office of Sponsored Projects.
Faculty members have applied for millions of dollars in funding for scientific research, though most applications are still pending, Mortali said. The office will calculate in the next few weeks how much funding Dartmouth researchers are likely to receive, she said.
The $16 billion appropriated for research in the stimulus package is being distributed via grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies, Mortali said.
Many of the recent applications for funding have been for so-called challenge grants, Mortali said. These grants are usually bestowed after a research group has completed a specific "challenge." The NIH specifically has a $200 million challenge grant program to fund research investigating scientific and health issues, including bioethics, stem cells and genomics, that can yield results within two years.
Mortali estimated that at one point her office received at least 80 requests for grant applications. The Office of Sponsored Projects is processing the applications and does not yet know the exact number of researchers who have applied, she said.
Mortali said that her office will begin to focus on procuring funding for new construction and equipment over the next few months. These grants, which range from $2 million to $15 million, will go towards the construction and improvement of scientific facilities and the procurement of expensive instruments, she explained.
College Provost Barry Scherr noted that it is still early in the application process, and that the College will not receive most of its stimulus package funding until fall 2009.
"A big stimulus package like this is very brand new," he said. "A lot of big agencies are still working to figure out how to give the money out, so it's still a little early to figure out exactly what's going to happen."
Mortali emphasized that the science funding aims to jump-start the economy, so projects are being funded over the course of two years. She added that about 70 percent of scientific funding is used to pay staff and faculty.
"Money is the engine of doing research because you need personnel," Mortali said. "It will go towards hiring graduate students, [post-doctoral fellows], technicians and other associated staff and faculty who actually do carry out the goals of research every day."
