In the News

Research Careers at Community Colleges?(from the journal Science, September 2011)

Not only is research possible at a 2-year college, but it often leads to rewarding careers for faculty and encourages students to pursue a career in science and research.

Two-Year Colleges Are Jumping Into the U.S. Research Pool (freelance contribution to Science, September 2011)

A growing number of community colleges hope to improve instruction and train a more diverse cadre of scientists by involvingstudents in research.

Bringing Theory to Practice (Association of American Colleges & Universities, September 2012)

Sixty-One Institutions Selected to Receive Funding in First Round of Grants Supporting Projects on Civic Learning, Psychosocial Well-Being, and Engaged Learning.

NSF Grants to Improve STEM ed (CCDaily, American Association of Community Colleges, December 2014)

“There are sources out there for community colleges that you all ought to be thinking about that can help advance whatever your cause may be,” -David R. Brown, Program Director at the NSF

Undergraduate Research at Community Colleges (Published by Council on Undergraduate Research, 2009)

Scholars on the rise (Published by American Psychological Association, March 2011)

"As community colleges ramp up their psychology research programs, they're easing the way for students who dream of doctorates." -Lea Winerman

Crowdfund Anything: Crowdfunding Research Science (Crowd101.com, February 24, 2015 By Joseph Hogue) Link here.

Crowdfunding Science: Appealing to the online community for research money.

With federal and state funding for science flat or on the downward trend, many young scientists are looking for new ways to support their research. One way is crowdfunding, appealing directly to the public via the Internet for money.

Crowdfunding Propels Scientific Research (Health & Science section, Washington Post January 2015)

"Today, an increasing number of academic scientists are paying attention to how their hair looks in photos, considering whether they should blog, and figuring out how to translate their life’s work into a brief and attention-grabbing YouTube clip for strangers."

Statistics and Quick facts: (*citations pending)

In 2013, the application success rate at the NSF is 22% (*)

at the NIH - 18% (National Institutes of Health, 2014)

In the same time period the success rate for scientific research listed on Kickstarterwas 64%. With typical donations from interested parties was $25.

Crowdfunding website Experiment.com, which is dedicated to science, had a success rate of 38%. With pledge totals from a few thousand dollars up to $1.5 Million. A simple example was one particular researcher who got a total of $50,000 from 288 backers.

Sources for Research & Development for academic institutions (National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2012)

Federal Government: 64.75%

State and Local Government: 4.6%

Business: 5.25%

Academic Institutions(Internal funding): 17.9%

Other: 7.5%

U.S. total R&D expenditures(in science)in 2011: $424.4 Billion (NSF, National Center for S&E Statistics; annual statistics 2014)