By: Emily Reynolds,

Collegian Staff

*originally posted Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Last month, the new chancellor, Robert Holub, announced that he was going to appoint a new vice chancellor specifically for Research and Engagement. He came in the form of Paul Kostecki.

It seems that UMass wants to be a leading research institution, something that the administration has been saying for years and has been working towards.

While I do not know if UMass is a premiere research institution, here are some of the facts:
– $135,318,332 awarded for research in 2008
– 1,194 research awards that get the money
– $126,000,000 for research expenditures

All of these are new highs for UMass, with funds going up three percent from last year even with a declining economy.

The majority of the money comes from the federal government, and out of that, nearly half comes from the National Science Foundation. Surprisingly, only seven percent of the money comes from the Department of Defense.

As for specific programs that rank highly in the US, here are some of those:
– US News and World Report lists linguistics as the number 1 program
– National Research Council ranks Polymer as number 2 in the nation
– UMass gives out 27 percent of the nation’s polymer science PhD’s
– In 2004, the London Times ranked the UMass system as 45 from the top 200 school in the world

You can find out all about the new position of Research and Engagement and everything that gets done by visiting their website.

Emily Reynolds can be reached at [email protected].