Well, here we are obviously in front of our nation’s capitol. I spend a good bit of 
my time in Washington D.C., because of course, the federal government is so 
critically important to what the University of Washington’s all about.  As 
everyone in this audience knows, the University of Washington leads the nation in 
terms of federal expenditures on research for all public universities, and is number 
two overall, second only to Johns Hopkins, in the amount of research support we 
get from the federal government.  So, our relationships with the federal 
government and all of its agencies, and of course our relationship with our own 
congressional delegation is very, very important to the future of the UW.

We’re very fortunate to have a delegation that is, first of all, very influential in 
congressional matters, and second of all, very supportive of all the things going 
on inside the state, and especially at the UW.

Well, we’re obviously back on campus now. What I wanted to talk about this 
afternoon is a role that some people don’t often consider when they think about 
the way we fund higher education. When you talk about higher education finance 
for most people, they think about the role of state government, and what states do 
to support their state universities or individual campuses.  But what I really want 
to talk about in this installment of Office Hours is the role of the federal 
government here at the University of Washington, because of the critical role it 
plays in what we do here.

One of the most important roles that the federal government plays is in the 
support of basic research that is used, of course, to fund all of our research 
programs, a lot of our graduate students, and many of the staff here at the 
University of Washington.  That research, of course, is funded through 
competitive grant programs, and the UW has been so successful over the years 
because our faculty, staff, and students have demonstrated their ability to compete 
with the very finest academics in the nation. So, we are extremely well known at 
the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, the Department 
of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA.  All of the funding agencies know that 
the University of Washington faculty will play with anybody, anytime.

Year after year, the University of Washington continues to lead all other 
universities in the total research funding that we receive from federal support.  In 
2006, and this year, a number of new multimillion dollar grants should be 
highlighted.

$8 million, for example, went to King Holmes and Global Health for international 
AIDS education.

$15 million to Anand Yang and his colleagues at the Jackson School for eight 
foreign area study centers, ranking us number one in the nation along with the 
University of Wisconsin.

$6 million to Minoru Taya and mechanical engineering, for solar energy systems 
used in aircraft.

And $15.4 million to Paul Yager and bioengineering for portable medical devices, 
used in areas without access to health care.

And today, we’re in the lab of Marjorie Almstead of the physics department, 
where she and a team from colleges and departments across the university is 
leading a revolutionary new PhD program in nanotechnology. The program is 
funded through a National Science Foundation IGERT Grant for $3.2 million, and 
allows her to support graduate students across the institution. 

But we’re not just competitive in scientific and engineering research.  We also 
receive very important help from the federal government in student financial aid.  
We are, for example, the number three recipient of Pell Grants in the United 
States, allowing students to gain access to the UW quite independent from their 
economic backgrounds.  And it’s Medicare and Medicaid funding, along with 
many other federal programs that support medical education and the delivery of 
medical services, that allow our hospitals and our clinics to reach out to the 
elderly and the needy, across Washington State. 

I’ve been really pleased with a number of you that took time to post messages on 
our message board. It’s very helpful feedback for me, and it’s good to know 
what’s on your mind.  If you have thoughts or ideas about our federal agenda, and 
what we’re doing in the nation’s capitol, please be sure and post something on 
washington.edu/president.  I look forward to hearing from you.