In February, the U.S. Navy awarded Penn State’s Applied Research Lab (ARL) its largest ever contract — worth a potential $2.01 billion over the next 10 years. Scientists will be tasked with conducting research and overseeing the development of technologies and systems involved in the guidance of undersea vehicles, propulsion dynamics, and materials and manufacturing technology.

For modern Penn State researchers, large projects like the most recent Navy deal are ordinary. The university made its transition from quaint farm school to international research hub long ago. This change came gradually, and is primarily the result of the work of several mid-20^th-century university presidents.

Penn State received its first federal aid in 1862, when the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act allowed for the creation of state universities with agricultural and mechanical curriculums. The act granted 780,000 acres of land to the state of Pennsylvania. This land was then sold, and the resulting funds were used to subsidize the expansion of the school under Evan Pugh (1859-1864), Penn State’s first president, according to the university archives. From then until the end of World War II, federal grants to universities focused on building and agriculture.

A push for further Penn State research initiatives came from University President Ralph Hetzel (1927- 1947). Hetzel emphasized graduate work in every academic department to meet the research needs of the government, business, and industries. But the school’s research efforts remained focused on instruction due to high teaching loads and low research endowments.

This focus shifted when the U.S. Navy transferred a group of engineers that included eventual University President Eric Walker (1956-1970) from Harvard University’s Underwater Sound Laboratory to State College in 1945. They formed the Ordnance Research Lab (now know as the ARL), and began researching underwater propulsion methods.

When World War II ended, federal research grants began to address engineering, mineral industries, and other sciences. President Milton Eisenhower’s (1950-1956) term saw the arrival of the university’s atomic energy research program and the construction of the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor in 1955. By the end of Eisenhower’s tenure, Penn State’s annual research expenditures reached $7.4 million, with a third of the money coming from private donations according to university archives.

Walker succeeded Eisenhower after serving as the director of the ARL, the dean of the College of Engineering, and the vice president of research among other roles. Penn State’s annual research expenditures grew dramatically during his tenure, expanding from $8 million to $36 million according to university archives.

The ARL’s partnership with the Department of Defense wasn’t welcomed by all students during the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War. It eventually led to protests on Old Main and in front of the Garfield Thomas Water Tunnel lab after students learned researchers were helping to develop torpedoes.

Total research expenditures for Penn State in 2017 reached a record high of $863 million. $112.85 million went towards agricultural science research, while $218.128 million went to defense research. Research funding, like the university itself, has transformed over the past 163 years from small-scale agricultural grants into global scientific research partnerships and will likely continue to follow this trend.