Research Funding Highlights FY21-22

CU Boulder again attracted record levels of research funding this year—$658 million in gifts and awards, including $474 million from federal agencies—to power its research and innovation enterprise. Our research funding totals serve as a milepost to assess and compare our productivity with other top research universities, but they reflect only part of the impact of our faculty, students, staff and partners. 

Research funding highlights

*Numbers have been rounded to simplify. For full details, please visit www.colorado.edu/ocg/annual-report.

Total funding: $658 million

  • International, nonprofits and other: $79 million
  • Other universities: $49 million
  • CU Foundation gifts: $28 million
  • Industry: $23 million
  • State of Colorado: $5 million
  • Federal agencies: $474 million
    • NASA: 31%
    • NSF: 24%
    • Commerce: 15%
    • NIH: 12%
    • Energy: 7%
    • Defense: 6%
    • Education: 1%
    • Other: 3%