Miami University set a new record for external funding in fiscal year 2024. Total external funding received for grants and contracts was more than $50 million, an increase of more than 33% of the previous funding record of $37 million in FY 2023.  This is also more than triple the funding in fiscal year 2017, according to Miami’s office of research and innovation. 

Miami has focused on building research strengths across multiple domains. “These growing resources support our research, faculty, staff, and students in significant ways and advance both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research and discovery,” Miami University President Gregory Crawford said.

The largest funding agencies for FY 2024 include the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Ohio Department of Education, and the Butler County Board of Commissioners. 

 “The sizes of the awards received are impressive, eclipsed only by the variety of funders and types of external awards received by the university,“ Rick Page, associate vice president for Research and Innovation, said. “The diversity of award types is an example of the breadth of strengths across the university.” 

The largest single grant in Miami’s history was awarded this year by the Butler County Board of Commissioners: $10 million to develop the Advanced Manufacturing Workforce and Innovation Hub. The project, led by Randi Malcolm Thomas, vice president of Miami’s Office of ASPIRE, and Ande Durojaiye, vice president of Miami Regionals and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Applied Sciences, will bolster Butler County and the Southwest Ohio region's strong manufacturing base and serve the needs of industry, residents, and students through training, education, and research.  

The Hub, which is a collaboration among the Butler County Board of Commissioners, Miami University, Butler Tech, and the City of Hamilton — will leverage this $10 million funding to attract future awards and foster applied research partnerships in manufacturing.  

STEM research continues to be funded at levels that enable both undergraduate and graduate students to collaborate with principal investigators through major funding awards this year. Some highlights include:

• Several faculty members in the Department of Physics have received multiple federal grants for advancing quantum science research, with applications ranging from healthcare to national security.
• Katia Del Rio-Tsonis, professor of Biology, received three awards from the National Institutes of Health in the past three years (2022, 2023, 2024) totaling more than $920,000, recognizing her team’s groundbreaking research on embryonic eye models with potential clinical applications for age-related eye conditions. 

“This pursuit of external grants directly supports our educational mission,” Sue McDowell, vice president of Research and Innovation, said. “Miami is a student-centered institution and the integration of teaching and research is at the heart of the goal for increasing grant funding. Grants provide not only equipment and supplies for doing research, but much more importantly, grants provide undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to do research and the wages to afford to participate.” 

“The opportunity to be engaged in research as collaborators is what sets Miami apart in its commitment to teaching,” McDowell said.