Recovery Act Roundtable: On Stimulus Funding for Research |
|
September 28, 2010,
Volume 57, No. 05
|
University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann attended a meeting at the White House last Tuesday as an invited guest of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to discuss research funding related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Also in attendance in the Roosevelt Room were White House science advisor John Holdren and five other university presidents.
“Stimulus funds are generating new knowledge and new jobs: both are life-saving and putting us on the road to recovery,” Dr. Gutmann said. “The Recovery Act has enabled Penn to add 700 new jobs in research and 400 ancillary job opportunities in construction and operations due to stimulus-funded projects.
“These funds have a multiplier effect,” Dr. Gutmann said. “An economic impact study demonstrated that for every dollar we spend on research, four additional dollars are spent in our region and nationally. These dollars create jobs.”
Penn researchers have secured more than 400 Recovery Act-funded grants worth nearly $200 million, across each of Penn’s 12 schools. More than $170 million of this funding came from the National Institutes of Health. In 2008, Penn brought in about $750 million in sponsored research funding, the majority of it from federal agencies such as the NIH.
Dr. Gutmann and the five other university presidents discussed the tangible impacts of scientific research taking place at their universities. The others were France Cordova, Purdue; Mark Yudof, University of California; Elson Floyd, Washington State University; former Penn provost Ron Daniels, Johns Hopkins; and Bernard Machen, University of Florida.
Video of the White House meeting is at www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/latestnews/092210.html. Dr. Gutmann’s remarks begin at 20:07. |
