The University of Arizona has raised more than $1.3 billion for faculty and research positions, research funding and student support through its Fuel Wonder Campaign since 2017.
But the money raised “cannot be used to offset any federal reductions” in university funding, UA spokesperson Mitch Zak says. To try to protect federal funding, university officials are lobbying on Capitol Hill, a UA senior vice president told the Arizona Board of Regents.
Meanwhile, private fundraising through Fuel Wonder is picking back up, after becoming more difficult when the university’s budget deficit was revealed in 2023, UA Foundation’s CEO told the regents.
That fundraising included more than $472 million for endowed faculty and research positions, more than $585 million in endowed and non-endowed research funding, and $332 million in student support including over $109 million in scholarships.
“Our university alumni and donors understand the value of research,” said John-Paul Roczniak, the president and chief executive officer of the University of Arizona Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to support the UA through philanthropy.
“They know how important it is for this institution and what it does for our faculty, a lot of our students — they’re in the labs, they’re working and our donors and alumni have stepped up and have given over $585 million in research funding across this campus,” Roczniak told the regents Thursday at a board meeting.
“So, they’re investing, and I think it’s good for the future as we start to think about closing out this campaign and basing it on the strategic imperatives and the important areas that (UA) President (Suresh) Garimella has outlined as areas of priority for this institution,” he said, referring to the president’s outlining of the university’s Strategic Imperatives this spring.
Roczniak said the UA had seen an uptick in the number of donors since December and that the total number was 122,884 in the campaign right now.
He said there was a dip in donations after the UA announced it had faced a huge deficit in the fall of 2023, saying a lot of conversations with donors changed dramatically after that. He said donors were asking about the whys and hows of the financial difficulties, as well as if they should continue to support the university.
The UA saw a “significant drop” in donations in the last six months of fiscal year 2024, Roczniak said. And in the first six months of fiscal year 2025 as well, “it took a while to come back.”
The budget deficit, initially estimated at $240 million, will be gone by July 1, UA officials have said.
Roczniak also addressed the UA’s “small” endowment of $1.4 billion, saying it is one of the university’s challenges. Right now, the foundation has $567 million in planned, documented gifts that will come to the university between now and 2040, out of which $428 million is ear-marked for the endowment, he said.
The foundation’s contributions, however, cannot be used to offset funding losses that have occurred under the Trump administration.
UA Senior Vice President for Research Tomás Díaz de la Rubia told the regents Thursday that 68 federally funded UA projects have either been stopped or terminated. In May, Secretary of the Faculty Katie Zeiders told faculty and researchers in an email that the number was 73 research awards, and since then some have been restored.
Díaz de la Rubia told the regents he is most worried about graduate students, because losing them would lead to losing a generation of researchers, creative artists, scientists and engineers who contribute to the nation.
To tackle this, Díaz de la Rubia spoke about the UA’s bridge funding program, which Zeiders said in May had about $1 million in funds to bridge the gaps in federal grants.
Díaz de la Rubia said Thursday the UA has been able to support every graduate student and faculty member who has asked for resources through the fund.
A student walks on the University of Arizona campus. The UA’s private fundraising since 2017 has produced $332 million for student support, including more than $109 million in scholarships.
“We stopped doing some things that we were doing. We said, ‘This is not as relevant right now as this issue,’ and we put money to create a bridge funding program for graduate students,” said Díaz de la Rubia. “We looked at the projects that were being terminated and we asked the faculty to work with the deans and come up with a plan where we could, through my office, fund graduate students for at least six months to bridge the gap between the termination of the grant and the potential for new funding from other sources.”
Díaz de la Rubia also discussed the UA’s research area focuses, including AI-driven health-care innovation, fusion energy commercialization, sustainable mining and critical minerals, and space and national security. He mentioned editorials written by Garimella and himself that were published in The Hill and The Arizona Republic, saying it is important to advocate for the research done at universities that drives the economy and national security.
“We also have to be out there on Capitol Hill. Our strategy is to be very vocal in Capitol Hill,” he said.
“I just came back from Washington, D.C. yesterday. I was there because our national budgets are under threat. I was there with Senator (Mark) Kelly, Congressman (Juan) Ciscomani, Senator (Rueben) Gallego, with the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee (Tom Cole) talking about these issues,” he continued.
“I was there letting them know what the impacts to Southern Arizona are … and what could happen to us, to the state and to the nation if we really go down the path of ending seven to eight decades of history of the federal government’s support in research at universities to drive economic well-being, to drive national security.”
ABOR Chair Cecilia Mata asked Díaz de la Rubia to expand on the possibility of finding industry partners in Arizona to be financial partners with the UA. She noted that a lot of companies are headquartered outside of Arizona.
Díaz de la Rubia said that while that is true, there is a thriving innovation and corporate ecosystem in the state including microelectronics in the Phoenix area and space, optics and photonics companies across the state. While corporate partnerships are important, he also said the UA is focused on partnerships with national laboratories, saying they’re “engines” of discovery and innovation.
Regent Fred DuVal asked Díaz de la Rubia, and Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University officials, about the average indirect cost rates they used to receive before the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation under the Trump administration announced they would cap them at 15%. Those are the costs to run laboratories and facilities and pay for administrative activities.
Garimella responded that the UA previously recovered about 38% in indirect costs and he hopes the negotiation process between universities and the federal government winds up somewhere higher than 15%.
