In the last fiscal year, Iowa State attracted $424.9 million through external funding, breaking the previous record of $388.2 million in 2010.

External funding is allotted to the university through grants, contracts, gifts and cooperative agreements with federal, state and local governments, along with corporations, foundations and other universities.       

The external funds given to Iowa State support the university’s researchers, students, faculty, educational programs, equipment, construction on campus and extension activities.

“Over half of it covers research but also student scholarships [and] educational programs. Certainly extension is a big piece of this,” said Sarah Nusser, vice president for research. “It’s usually raised with a purpose … and it’s certainly helping to deal with the expanded enrollment here at Iowa State and [to] continue to provide quality services.”

Research costs take up more than half of all the external funding allotted to Iowa State.

“It’s been a priority and continues to be a priority to bring in additional external funding, particularly funding that’s devoted to research,” said John McCarroll, executive director of university relations. “Out of the roughly $425 million that we announced, a little over half of that — about $226 million — is dedicated to research projects.”

Key areas at Iowa State that faculty emphasize for funding are agriculture, engineering, big data and STEM education, Nusser said.

External funding is a way to uphold those strengths, she said.

“Most everything that we get through sponsored funding is with some purpose in mind,” Nusser said. “Because we have written competitive grants with our donors to help them understand the needs here at Iowa State, we have been awarded this funding.”

In the last fiscal year, there has been an increase of $44 million in funding from the Iowa State University Foundation and an increase of $14 million from federal agencies. Included in the federal funding is an increase of almost $10 million from the National Science Foundation and its competitive grants program.

Applying for external funding is a year-round process, McCarroll said.

“We will seek every year to continue to increase the resources available to students and our faculty,” Nusser said. “The whole goal here is to provide value for the state of Iowa and really for the nation and the world as a whole in terms of education, work force development [and] innovation that spawns commercial activity.”