UT’s Research is on the Rise
Across the university, UT is on the rise—and research is no exception.
This year, we received a record-breaking $428 million in research awards and sponsored projects funding.
Industry leaders and government agencies are turning to UT for our expertise and capability to tackle complicated problems with real-world implications. From advanced materials and manufacturing to artificial intelligence, quantum materials to precision agriculture, the work happening across our research enterprise is making life and lives better in Tennessee and beyond.
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, I am Chancellor Donde Plowman and today I’m here at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm where lots of construction is going on for our new research building. We are just across the Tennessee River from our main UT Knoxville campus.
Here at the research park, our industry partners work side by side with UT faculty experts to solve real-world problems and create technologies that impact the lives of people in Tennessee and beyond.
One of those partners is Volkswagen, which opened its first North American Innovation Hub here at the research park in 2020.
Just a couple of weeks ago I traveled to Wolfsburg, Germany with President Boyd and some other UT leaders to visit the VW Innovation Group Headquarters. It was an incredible trip focused on strengthening our partnership and exploring new ways we can work together to build the vehicles of the future.
Our work in future mobility is just one of the innovation gateways where we’re building momentum. Across the university, our faculty researchers are on the cutting edge of some of the most important challenges we face in industry and society.
In the last four years, our research awards and sponsored projects have doubled, hitting a record $428 million just in the last fiscal year.
We launched Team Tennessee, a statewide coalition focused on future mobility. We received an $18 million National Science Foundation Award for the new Center for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing. We hosted the NSF director here on campus. We committed to a $50 million investment in cluster hires to build on our expertise in key disciplines, and we broke ground on a new research building Innovation South.
You can probably hear the construction right now, it’s behind me here at the research park.
I’m so impressed with the progress we’ve made and the records we’ve set, but what’s more important than those numbers is the impact of our work.
Our research faculty and graduate students are using their knowledge and expertise to solve complex problems and develop the technologies that will change lives. That work and the work all the people across our campus do to support our mission is incredibly important to our university and the people we serve.
Thank you.