UCI’s Industry Sponsored Research Agreements Reaches Record-Breaking $27M

UC Irvine (UCI) Beall Applied Innovation’s Industry Sponsored Research (ISR) group had a record-breaking year for sponsored research agreements at UCI.

The team has accumulated more than $27 million in sponsored research agreements spanning across many departments at UCI, with the School of Medicine and UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering seeing the largest contributions. This new achievement for the team has more than doubled the total amount brought in by sponsored research agreements over the last five years, starting with approximately $12.3 million in 2016.

“Beall Applied Innovation established a really exceptional team of contracting officers,” said Dave Gibbons, MBA, director of Industry Sponsored Research and interim executive director at UCI Beall Applied Innovation. “When Kevin [Kennan] first took over, Richard asked him to build a ‘speed-of-business’ team, he found some really experienced and levelheaded people that can deal well with industry.”

ISR manages and supports the agreements involving research funded by or through for-profit industry sponsors (excluding clinical trials). Some staple partnerships that helped achieve their recording-breaking numbers includes a two-year study between UCI, Anthem and Apple, in addition to agreements with TAE Technologies as well as UCI faculty, namely Diran Apelian, distinguished professor of Materials Science and Engineering, chief strategy officer at the School of Engineering and director of UCI’s Advanced Casting Research Center.

“We are starting to see some of the payoff from the campus’ strategic investment in key faculty hires,” said Gibbons. “Bringing in new hires and with them, their companies, creates a great opportunity for existing faculty to engage and develop interesting and new projects that might have been impossible before. It’s a real affirmation of the campus’ strategic goals and really lays the foundation for our team to stay pretty busy over the next couple of years.”

Last year was also record breaking with ISR clocking in at $21.8 million in sponsored research agreements. This year, the School of Medicine saw the biggest growth, 86% increase since last year. They school experienced a $5.2 million increase, according to Gibbons.

The School of Engineering accounts for one-third of the $27M total — up from $6.4 million to $8 million, a 25% increase. ISR aims to achieve $30 million in sponsored research agreements by 2022.

Learn more about ISR.

Main Graphic: Kate Wokowsky, UCI Beall Applied Innovation

Photo: Ryan Mahar, UCI Beall Applied Innovation

Read the original story.