Annual Report 2025

We defeated the odds.  

On November 28, 2025, ScienceNews reported that more than 3,800 research grants from just two of the many federal sponsoring agencies were terminated or frozen. We were not immune. Here at the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research, a handful of principal investigators waited for grants recommended for funding to roll in, but those grants never came—and some are still waiting for final decisions on proposals submitted more than a year ago.  

Yet, despite the upsets and setbacks, this research center and state agency had an unexpectedly and unprecedented good year in new grant funding. Information from KU’s Research Insights database provide three clear messages:

• First, the ultimate sponsors of the majority of our research continue to be federal agencies. 
• Second, our principal investigators brought in more research funding for our research center last year than in any previous year, more than $8.5 million. 
• Third, we received more grant funding from the State of Kansas last year than in any previous year, $863,000. In fact, we currently have more researchers than ever working on natural resource concerns in Kansas—with funding from the Kansas Water Office, the Kansas Dept. of Wildlife and Parks, the Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment, and the Kansas Dept. of Agriculture.

The numbers represent only those grants that are managed by our administrative unit. They underestimate the funding our researchers help bring to KU because they do not include grants in which our researchers are collaborators (not lead principal investigators) that are managed by another unit at KU, for example, the Kansas Geological Survey.

The funding success of our center’s researchers in 2025 encourages my optimism that we will weather the uncertainty surrounding science—and that here at the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research we will continue to advance understanding of the vital interactions between humans and the environment, with a growing focus on Kansas.