College of Pharmacy climbs in national grant rankings

The UNMC College of Pharmacy climbed, yet again, in the latest American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Faculty Research Grant Institutional Rankings.

In the 2014 fiscal year, the college brought in nearly $7 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants. That’s good for No. 18 among the nation’s 130 schools and colleges of pharmacy, up one spot from a year ago.

But most impressive to Dean Courtney Fletcher, Pharm.D., is UNMC’s ability to continually punch above its weight class. At 32.30 full-time equivalents (FTEs), UNMC is by far the smallest faculty among top schools.

“Our faculty are having a high level of success in obtaining grants in one of the most competitive funding environments ever,” Dr. Fletcher said, “and we are seeing success across our assistant, associate professors and full professors. This provides reasons to be very encouraged about our ability for future success.”

UNMC ranks sixth in the country in NIH grant dollars per full-time employee. And, UNMC leads the nation with 46 percent of faculty funded as principal investigators. All this while continuing to educate the next generation of pharmacists and scientists.

“Our faculty’s ability to sustain a high standard of excellence and productivity in research, and an equally high standard in education, is a reflection of its commitment to our vision, and the effort, creativity and passion each brings to his or her job each day,” Dr. Fletcher said.

The ongoing construction on campus will only further propel the College of Pharmacy’s momentum in research when finished, Dr. Fletcher said.

“The UNMC Center for Drug Discovery, which will open in early 2016, will factor in to our future success as well, by providing the state-of-the-art research laboratories especially for drug discovery and development,” Dr. Fletcher said.