Awards to fund University of Hawaii research soar by $100 million

The University of Hawaii was incredibly competitive in obtaining research funding this past fiscal year, blowing by its previous record by $100 million.

UH snagged $616 million in the 2024 fiscal year, up 19% from $516 million a year earlier, which followed only a 2% gain from $505 million in the 2022 fiscal year, according to university officials.

Vassilis Syrmos, UH vice president for research and innovation, called the results an impressive achievement by a premier research institution that will boost jobs, business income, tax revenue, student education and wider knowledge.

“I never thought that the university would exceed $600 million in my life,” Syrmos, who is 59 and has been at UH since 1991, said Monday at a ceremony on campus in Manoa announcing the achievement.

The funding represents appropriations that were awarded during the recent fiscal year, which ended June 30, and then often get expended over multiple years. These appropriations, which UH refers to as extramural funding, include only competitive awards from external entities such as the federal government, private industry and nonprofit organizations.

Syrmos said the big gain stemmed from over $100 million in addition funding from the federal government compared with the prior year, and that efforts by UH personnel often take several years to result in awards.

“This number doesn’t happen overnight,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said she wasn’t aware just how competitive UH was with research funding opportunities.

“This is not money that is just handed to us,” she said during the ceremony.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said the expertise of UH researchers in many fields makes it easier to tap federal funding.

“We can look our colleagues in the eye and executive branch agencies in the eye and say the University of Hawaii system is world-class and a federal dollar spent here is a federal dollar well spent,” he said.