Stimulus package holds promise of funding for UCLA

The $819-billion economic stimulus bill that passed a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 28 and is now making its way through the Senate is likely to offer some tremendous funding opportunities for UCLA that could create jobs in the region, rev up the state economy and advance research, particularly in the field of alternative energy.

 

In letters sent Feb. 3 to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Chancellor Gene Block expressed his support for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and for the critical role it will play in helping California and the country recover from the current economic crisis. He praised the bill's provisions that would widen access to higher education, increase federal investment in scientific research and facilities, help UCLA improve seismic safety and supply campus laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment.

 

"The bill can provide much needed financial relief to help sustain and spur job creation, fund innovation and create new technological advances," Chancellor Block wrote in urging the senators to consider the bill's impact on UCLA and higher education in general.

 

While the Senate continues to work on its version of the bill, UCLA leaders are already looking at potential ways the campus may benefit. Recently, they sent up to UC a short list of shovel-ready projects — projects that can begin within 120 to 180 days after the bill is signed — to compete for funding. A committee of campus leaders from the offices of Research; Administration; and Finance, Budget and Capital Programs are keeping abreast of the bill's progress and working with UC officials and Government and Community Relations to prepare to proceed with funding requests as soon as the bill is signed.

"There's no doubt there are great opportunities here. That's very clear," said Vice Chancellor of Research Roberto Peccei. "But what's unclear is how the funds will be distributed and how we can access them. We think the money that is being allotted for infrastructure probably will be packaged as community block grants that will come through the states.

"This represents an enormous influx of funding," Peccei said. "There may be $50 billion to $70 billion in the bill for science and technology. That amount of funding is exceptional when you consider the government spends roughly $50 billion on science and technology in a year."

The possibilities for funding are wide-ranging, based on the bill that passed the House:

• Under the Obama economic stimulus bill, California could receive $21.5 billion, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The largest chunk of funding, $8 billion, would come to the state through the Fiscal Stabilization Fund, 61% of which would be dedicated to K-16 to spend over two years. Higher education is being directed to use the money to mitigate the need to raise tuition and fees for California resident students.

• A total of $6 billion for construction projects for colleges and universities would be funded under the Modernization, Renovation and Repair provision. UC officials have sent to the state a list of about $1 billion worth of campus projects, including three UCLA projects that have long been waiting for state funding. These include the Center for Health Sciences (CHS) South Tower seismic project, the School of Medicine's fire safety project and the CHS electrical distribution project. The total cost of all three projects is $234 million.

Campus officials are working on identifying more projects for a longer list, said Vice Chancellor Steve Olsen of finance, budget and capital programs.

• The bill includes money for an increase in Pell Grants. UC may receive as much as $22 million, enough to fund approximately 2,000 additional Pell grants, according to one report. The bill would also add $490 million to College Work-Study programs across the country to support an additional 200,000 undergraduate and graduate students who work.

 

"At UCLA, nearly 40% of our undergraduate students are eligible for Pell grants," the chancellor noted in his letter to the senators. "Combined with the education tax provisions, the recovery bill will assist a large number of UCLA's low and middle-income students and families in meeting the costs of education-related expenses."

• Approximately $10 billion would be invested in research under the leadership of the National Science Foundation ($3 billion), the Department of Energy's Office of Science ($1.6 billion), the Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy ($400 million), the National Institute of Standards and Technology ($500 million), the National Institutes of Health ($3.9 billion) and NASA ($600 million), among others.

UCLA is well-positioned to benefit from the economic recovery package in the area of science, technology and innovation, campus administrators said. In the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, a number of faculty members, including Bruce Dunn, Yang Yang, James Liao and Laurent Pilon, work on alternative energy projects.

Currently, one out of four grant proposals to the National Science Foundation gets supported, Peccei said. The bill would bolster funding and increase those odds.

The NSF's funding would include $2.5 billion that would pay for research and research-related activities. It's estimated that the money would support an additional 3,000 new NSF research awards and put to work 12,750 senior personnel, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduates.

About $1.5 billion is slated to go to the National Institutes of Health specifically to renovate university research facilities to help them compete for biomedical research grants.

 

UCLA's faculty and students, as well as society in general, would benefit if UCLA's laboratories were renovated with the best equipment available, the chancellor noted. "Research in our High Throughput Flu lab, the California Nanosystems Institute and other biomedical facilities would greatly benefit from the acquisition of new, state-of-the-art equipment," the chancellor explained in his letter to the three senators.

 

Meanwhile, the campus is staying alert and looking for other ways UCLA and through it, the L.A. region, may benefit from the stimulus package. UC officials have sent letters to key Congressional leaders in support of funding for research, student support, infrastructure, healthcare financing and tax provisions that would encourage more investment in universities that will speed the creation of new technologies.

"We are keeping our eyes on what is happening in Washington, D.C., and what may develop," Peccei said.