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The year 2009 was a fiscally challenging year for the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (ACS PRF). Yet, by taking prudent fiscally responsible actions, not only was the ACS PRF able to provide funds to all those proposals awarded grants in 2009 but it was able to maintain its support of our four core research grant programs in future years. At their May 2009 Advisory Board meeting, the ACS PRF Advisory Board (AB) suspended all non-core ACS PRF grant programs henceforth because of the poor financial markets causing a decreased grant budget for fiscal year (FY) 2009 and predicted for FY 2010, FY 2011 and FY 2012. The suspended non-core grant programs are the Advanced Scientific Education (SE), the Summer Research Fellowships (SRF), the Supplements for Underrepresented Minority Research (SUMR) and the Undergraduate Faculty Sabbatical (UFS) grant programs. The remaining core programs are the New Directions (ND), the Doctoral New Investigators (DNI), the Undergraduate Research (UR), and the Undergraduate New Investigators (UNI), all of which are fundamental research grant programs.

Additional cost-saving measures were taken by the ACS PRF AB at the May 2009 AB meeting. There will be only two Advisory Board meetings each calendar year and at the meetings only proposals in the four core research grant programs will be considered, that is, proposals for the DNI, ND, UR, and UNI grant programs. Also, no new grant programs will be initiated nor established grant programs expanded. These actions are temporary and the affected grant programs will be re-evaluated once the Fund financially recovers. The programmatic actions were deemed the best rapid means to financial recovery and to insure long-term financial stability of the Fund.

For FY 2009 the ACS Petroleum Research Fund held three PRF Advisory Board (AB) meetings and two undergraduate panels to consider and evaluate proposals for possible funding. The total number of requests considered at all of these meetings combined was 1,162 proposals. Awards by grant type combined from these meetings are: 92 New Directions (ND) grants ($9.20 million), 91 Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) grants ($9.10 million), 29 Undergraduate Research (UR) grants ($1.85 million), 35 Undergraduate New Investigator (UNI) grants, ($1.75 million), 43 Scientific Education (SE) grants ($0.48 million), 37 Supplements for Underrepresented Minority Research grants ($0.18 million), and 6 Undergraduate Faculty Sabbatical (UFS) grants ($0.24 million). The 34 ND grants awarded by the June 2009 Grants and Awards Board were expensed in 2009, but the grants did not start until 2010. Accordingly, despite the slow recovery of the financial markets, for fiscal year 2009 the ACS Petroleum Research Fund was able to award grants to 333 proposals that are funded with a grand combined total of $22.8 million.

In contrast to previous predictions, the FY 2009 grants were funded without having to draw any funds from the ACS PRF Reserve. We are proud of these accomplishments, for the effects of the poor financial markets experienced in 2008 through March of 2009 will be felt for several more years. The ACS PRF Agreement of Transfer of Trust requires the yearly distribution of the Fund to be based on a 3-year rolling average of the end-of-the-year market value of the Fund. The distribution may be up to 5% of that average provided that the market value of the Fund does not fall below $400 million. The market value at the end of 2008 was $389 million, so for 2009 the Fund was initially restricted to income only (i.e., dividends and interest). However, the Fund sufficiently recovered to a value above $400 million and administrative costs were reduced by over $1 million, which enabled us to take the full 5% of the 3-year rolling average of the end-of-the-year market value of the Fund.

The American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund will continue to face financial challenges for the next several years. However, we are committed to continue to support the four core fundamental research grant programs (i.e., ND, DNI, UR, and UNI grant programs) through these challenging times. We will have two ACS PRF Advisory Board meetings per year at least through 2012. At Spring ACS PRF AB meetings, we will consider proposals for all four core research grant programs. If sufficient funds are available we will consider proposals for all four grant programs again at the Fall ACS PRF AB meetings. If there are not sufficient funds to consider proposals in all four research grant programs at Fall ACS PRF AB meetings, we will only consider proposals for the new investigator grant programs, that is, the DNI and UNI grant programs.

The ACS PRF Advisory Board took actions they deemed were necessary to stabilize the financial status of the ACS PRF. In spite of these actions, we think it is vital to the science and engineering community to maintain continual support for fundamental research in the petroleum field throughout this process. We hope that you agree that we took the correct course of actions and we thank you for your understanding through these challenging financial times.

Ronald E. Siatkowski, Ph.D., FAIC
Director, Office of Research Grants and The ACS Petroleum Research Fund