Researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville set a record in fiscal year 2008 by winning more than $84.6 million in research contracts and grants, an increase of more than 16 percent over the previous record set in FY 2006.

"These numbers show that research is what UAHuntsville is known for. This is our nationally-ranked team," said Dr. John Christy, interim vice president for research at UAHuntsville. "It is a credit to our research faculty and staff, to the quality of the research we do at UAH and to the leadership provided by former vice president Ron Greenwood over the past ten years."

UAHuntsville researchers won more than 1,400 contracts and grants during the fiscal year in areas ranging from English as a second language to cosmology, rocket propulsion, air pollution and computer programming. UAHuntsville has more than $208 million in active research and service contracts. Many contracts and grants stretch over multiple years.

Among the university's research organizations, the largest one-year increase was registered by UAHuntsville's Earth System Science Center, which saw awards more than double to $14.8 million between fiscal year 2007 and 2008. A large piece of that is a $3 million contract for UAHuntsville to work with Lockheed-Martin to develop the Lightning Mapper satellite system.

Awards to the Systems Management and Production Center, which handles most of the university's research with the U.S. Army, increased by more than $5 million to $19.9 million, while the Rotorcraft Systems Engineering and Simulation Center recorded an increase of almost $4 million to $9.1 million in 2008.

"Not only will these awards enable the university to contribute valuable research to this community, the nation and the world," said Dr. David Williams, the university president, "but these contracts and grants will allow us to support additional graduate students while moving UAHuntsville that much closer to our goal of $100 million a year in sponsored research within five years."