"its very exciting to be apart of a growth trend especially here in Rochester," says David Bond, director of Sponsored Research Services.

That growth is being fueled by the technology designed by RIT students and faculty. As a result, the university is seeing a historic rise in funding.

"A lot of this research funding buys equipment and sophisticated supplies that are needed for device development," says Bond.

RIT has received almost $37 million from the federal government this year. Another $15 million came from defense contractors and agencies.  Add that to seven million from other sources and RIT has received more than $58 million in sponsored funding this year. That's a twenty percent bump from a year ago.

"The idea was to be able to develop technology for many different fields for application that not only in space but also to be able to look inside the human body," says RIT Professor Don Figer.

One of the departments that's receiving a large chunk of funding is RIT's Center for Imaging Science.

"One million the first year, $2.5 million the second year more, like $4 million this year and so its increasing at a pretty rapid pace," says Figer.

They're designing detectors that will be used in space to take pictures of stars. Those detectors could one day be used inside digital cameras. 

"So if you could have a perfect detector, one that could never make a picture that was fuzzy or had grain if you could have that perfect detector thats what we want to deliver," says Figer.

RIT credits the rise in funding to its faculty and the partnerships it has built with outside companies. But for RIT, this isnt where the bucks stops.

"Now its a matter of being very aggressive and entrepreneurial and winning new research that can enable more educational opportunities for our graduates," says Figer.