UCDavisDelivers Detailed How Federal Funding Changes Lives
Ice that doesn’t melt. Clothing that alerts you to health issues. Technology that restores voices. Lighting colors that make you more productive. Forecasting tools that can protect neighborhoods, people and ecosystems from extreme weather.
These are just a handful of research advancements supported by federal funding highlighted by UCDavisDelivers, a yearlong online and social media campaign meant to show the impact of UC Davis research on everyday lives.
UCDavisDelivers was launched by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, College of Letters and Science, College of Biological Sciences and the Office of Research just after Memorial Day 2025, as federal research funding was threatened in Washington, D.C. The campaign wrapped up at the end of this past May with more than 335 social media posts spread across Instagram, LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook and other platforms.
“The UCDavisDelivers campaign was really our apology,” said Ed Kiggins, director of communications for the College of Letters and Science. “The cuts to research funding were one thing. The public’s level of comfort with those cuts showed that we hadn’t been doing a very good job of talking about what we do. If the country really knew how we shape the world for the better, they would never allow such drastic threats. This was our effort to right that wrong.”
The campaign began with a video showcasing research that has advanced human and animal health, protected the planet and our food supply, and led to a more resilient society. The video was accompanied by a written story detailing 12 historic research breakthroughs from UC Davis that have improved our lives, our economy and our future.
Each college or office participating in the campaign produced its own social media posts based on research or advancements from UC Davis. The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and College of Letters and Science posts garnered 564,000 impressions, receiving more than 11,000 comments, likes and other forms of engagement.
“This campaign really gave us a chance to distill an incredibly wide range of achievements into a single deliverable — to communicate the true power of one of the world’s best research universities,” Kiggins said.
Popular posts featured articles on the potential of a novel LSD analogue developed at UC Davis to treat schizophrenia; a way to accelerate the earth’s own natural processes to speed up carbon capture and stabilize our climate; a new fungicide that can protect crops from pathogens; how schools can design new HVAC systems for cleaner indoor air; and on-the-ground science that uncovered how warming permafrost is staining Alaska’s pristine rivers and streams a rusty orange color.
Another social media post cited Professor Keith David Watenpaugh, who studies genocide, displacement and the experiences of refugees, on the importance of humanities. “Engineering can tell us how to build a nuclear bomb, but the humanities provide us with the guidance and ethical framework to know never to use it,” Watenpaugh said.
The campaign cited funding from a wealth of federal sources, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service and U.S Department of Energy.
UCDavisDelivers complemented the university’s ongoing From Labs to Lives campaign featuring videos, fact sheets and interviews with experts and people who have benefitted from research findings, technological advancements and medical milestones that originated at UC Davis.
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