Quick Facts
Ten quick facts about the Cornell research enterprise
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Cornell ranks among the nation’s top academic institutions in research expenditures: $687 million in FY 2009.
Top sources of funding for Cornell research are the National Science Foundation (NSF) at $115 million and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) at $192.4 million in FY 2009.
Cornell ranks number 1 in NSF funding in the latest NSF report and has alternated between the first and second spots for the past several years.
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Cornell’s Ithaca campus and Weill Cornell Medical College together had received a total of $159.7 million in ARRA funds as of November 2010.
Total number of awards: 267
Total number of jobs created or retained: 357.9 (FTEs)
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Cornell graduate student stipends and tuition expenditures for organized research totaled $47 million in FY 2009.
Federal support: $23.7 million
Nonfederal sponsored support: $8.5 million
Cornell appropriated support: $13.9 million
Graduate students enrolled in organized research: 1,950 (FY 2009) and 1,875 (FY 2008)
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Cornell annually ranks among the top 10 universities in innovation and number of patents issued.
Number of patents Cornell received in FY 2009: 77 U.S. patents and 71 international patents
Number of new technologies Cornell researchers disclosed in FY 2009: 363
Number of licenses Cornell negotiated: 75 licenses (FY 2009) and 65 (FY 2008)
Number of new companies formed: 3 (FY 2009) and 8 (FY 2008)
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Cornell has a distinguished share of faculty—191 memberships in 2009—in the national academies
In 2009 Cornell faculty members totaled 13 in the American Philosophical Society, 86 in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 44 in the National Academy of Sciences, 28 in the National Academy of Engineering, 16 in the Institute of Medicine, and four in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Ten Cornell faculty have been elected to the national academies in 2010—one to the American Philosophical Society, four to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one to the National Academy of Sciences, two to the National Academy of Engineering, and two to the Institute of Medicine.
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Cornell’s Young faculty won a total of 19 career development and young investigator awards in FY 2009.
Cornell faculty won 13 NSF Faculty Early Career Development Awards in FY 2009, ranking second in the nation. Cornell ranked number one in FY 2007, receiving the largest number of awards of any university.
Cornell young faculty received two Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2009. Cornell ranked first in these awards in 2007.
In 2009 Cornell faculty won two Department of Energy Early Career Research Awards, one Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, and one NIH New Innovator Award.
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Cornell commands world-class research and teaching facilities, several recently completed or in-progress.
Cornell’s state-of-the-art physical sciences building, housing three prominent departments (Applied and Engineering Physics, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Physics) fosters research in sustainability, energy, and human health. It is slated to be completed in the fall of 2010.
Milstein Hall, expanding Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, will be a “center of gravity” for the design arts, supporting creativity and the best teaching and scholarship. It is scheduled for completion in 2011.
Weill Hall, one of only six university laboratory buildings with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design “gold” certification, is a cutting-edge life sciences facility for interdisciplinary research and teaching in the biological, physical, engineering, computational, and social sciences. Also housing the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, it opened in 2008.
Cornell’s innovative Duffield Hall, completed in 2004, was designed for the interdisciplinary research in nanotechnology and education in which Cornell is a global leader.
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The Research Division/Office of the Vice Provost for Research consists of approximately 1,000 academic and nonacademic staff.
The division includes three national research centers; 18 other research centers; four service units, serving faculty research-related needs; and a central administrative unit.
Cornell’s National Research Centers are the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, and Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source.
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Cornell has more than 100 interdisciplinary research centers, institutes, laboratories, and programs that enable faculty and staff to share specialized research facilities, equipment, and other resources.
Founded in 2009 the Center on the Microenvironment and Metastasis, using nanotechnology for cancer research, is a collaboration between Cornell in Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medical College.
Established in 2009 to concentrate on energy materials, including fuel cells and batteries, the Energy Materials Center at Cornell became one of DOE’s newly funded Energy Frontier Research Centers.
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Cornell’s research distinction is diversified and far-reaching, propelled by a distinguished faculty throughout its history.
Seven Cornell faculty have been recipients of the President’s National Medal of Science.
Forty Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Cornell as faculty or students.