The University of Wisconsin spends nearly $900 million in
research annually and has claimed top positions in national research rankings,
according to a National Science Foundation report released Thursday.

According to the report, UW spent nearly $832 million in
2006 in science and engineering research, and is No. 2 in the nation — behind
Johns Hopkins University. UW also holds the top spot with $73 million for
funding in the areas of education, business and humanities.

Research in science and engineering climbed $35 million from
2005 to 2006, and UW moved from third place up to second.

Martin Cadwallader, vice chancellor for research and dean of
the graduate school, said UW has constantly ranked high in research funding,
and he is glad to have outpaced universities like Michigan and UCLA, adding it
"always feels good."

"In fact, it means we're No. 1, because Johns Hopkins has a
lot of classified research, which we don't do on this campus," Cadwallader
said.

Positioned atop the rankings, John Hopkins University
conducts $1.5 billion in research, including $709 million spent at the Applied
Physics Laboratory, an affiliate of the university that focuses on defense and
military-related research.

Research funding applies to a multitude of applications
around campus, according to UW Chancellor John Wiley.

"Once the money is here on campus, it funds an awful [lot] of
salaries, graduate teaching assistants, hourly wages, a lot of this money gets
out in the community," Wiley said. "It has a huge economic impact on students
and on the community, and we're very pleased to be up there."

Over the last six or seven years, Wiley said UW has lost
nearly 200 faculty because there was no state funding to replace those who
retired or left the university. He added the current 2007-09 budget is the best
one UW has seen in six years, however, losing faculty also affects the
university's chances to receive more private funding.

Additional faculty would provide extra funding, as each UW
professor brings, on average, about $409,000 per year in research, Wiley said.

"If we get a grant for research in physics, we can't use
that to hire another Spanish instructor, no matter how much we need one," Wiley
said. "Even though we're getting a lot of state and private money, we still
need base budget funding."

Currently, UW's biggest research effort is a $250 million
project to build a neutrino telescope at the South Pole, which would provide
knowledge about outer space, Cadwallader said.

The "IceCube" is a joint effort of several American and
European universities, he added, with UW as the research leader.

"The money we get creates jobs on campus, and the research
on campus creates jobs in the real world," Cadwallader said. "The university is
a great investment of the state. It's part of the solution, not the problem."

Wiley added that UW has phenomenal, creative and competitive
faculty and staff, and commended the university for its research efforts.