With federal money stagnant, jump in private grants propels university's growth 
USC brought in a record amount of research funding last year, as it saw an uptick in private grant awards.
In all, researchers at the university won nearly $238.3 million in research grants in the 2012 fiscal year, up 5 percent from the year prior, a trend Prakash Nagarkatti, the vice president for research, said he hopes to continue.
"My aim is to increase it to $300 million within five years," he said.
Last year, federal sources continued to provide the lion's share of USC's research awards, but those funds didn't increase by much.
Such funds grew by just a one-quarter of 1 percent compared to 2011, according to numbers provided by the Office of Research.
Instead, the increase last year owed largely to a jump in money from private sources like businesses. Those funds increased 18 percent, to $71.8 million.
Those funding opportunities are still a fraction of the whole, though, Nagarkatti said, because businesses usually target projects that will benefit them in the short term.
But government agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Energy (DOE) can focus on larger proposals with broader effects, he said.
Funding from the DOE became more prevalent, increasing 22 percent and becoming the fourth biggest federal funding sponsor.
The largest was the Department of Health and Human Services, which ticked up 7 percent to replace the NIH as USC's largest federal funding source for the first time since the 2009 fiscal year, according to past reports.
But those numbers don't include funds that have been awarded since July 1, when the 2012 fiscal year ended, including a $10 million grant USC received from the NIH for a new inflammation center last month.
Overall research funding has increased each of the last five years, according to past funding reports, but this year wasn't such a sure bet, Nagarkatti said.
Over the last few years, the university has benefitted from federal agencies flush with stimulus money, Nagarkatti said, but that money is drying up, and grants are becoming more competitive.
Nagarkatti attributed USC's success in winning them to its emphasis on interdisciplinary projects and the $2.5 million USC has spent on internal ASPIRE grants to encourage them.
"That has gotten our faculty really excited about doing interdisciplinary research to collaborate amongst colleges and units," Nagarkatti said. "That's what's going to make us really competitive nationally, and that's why I feel like it's a fantastic investment."
The last of the federal stimulus money has dried up elsewhere at USC, too, according to Ed Walton, the chief financial officer.
The statewide USC system received $61.8 million to pay for faculty hires, utilities and its much-delayed OneCarolina system, Walton wrote in an email response, which was all spent by the end of the 2011 fiscal year.
The projects it funded, Walton wrote, were all one-time endeavors that won't require money down the line.