September 20, 2010

Penn President Amy Gutmann participated in a roundtable meeting with Vice President Joe Biden on September 20 to discuss job creation resulting from stimulus-funded research. Also in attendance were White House science advisor John Holdren and five other university presidents.

During the meeting, she pointed out the life-saving research being funded at Penn and other universities by the Recovery and Reinvestment Act and highlighted the 1,100 jobs at Penn created by stimulus funding.

Penn researchers have secured more than 400 Recovery Act-funded grants worth nearly $200 million, across each of Penn’s 12 schools. More than $170 million of this funding came from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 2008, the University brought in about $750 million in sponsored research funding, the majority of it from federal government agencies such as the NIH.

One of the grants was the $13 million awarded to the School of Medicine from the National Institutes of Health earlier this year. The money will go toward providing additional laboratory space in Penn’s $370 million Translational Research Center, slated to open in 2011 at 3400 Civic Center Blvd.

Press Release