Top U.S universities for federal National Science Foundation R&D grants and expenditures

Top U.S universities for federal National Science Foundation R&D grants and expenditures

Rankings by total R&D expenditures

The Higher Education Research and Development Survey is the primary source of information on R&D expenditures at U.S. colleges and universities. The survey collects information on R&D expenditures by field of research and source of funds and also gathers information on types of research, expenses, and headcounts of R&D personnel. The survey is an annual census of institutions that expended at least $150,000 in separately accounted for R&D in the fiscal year.

The most recent data shown is for Fiscal Year 2017.

Federal obligations for research and development increased to an estimated $118.3 billion in FY 2017, up 2.8% from $115.0 billion in FY 2016. Obligations for R&D plant increased by 23.6% to $3.0 billion during the same period. Total obligation funding for research declined by 0.3% to $66.5 billion in FY 2017. Basic research remained stable at $32.3 billion in FY 2017, while obligations for applied research declined by 0.8% to $34.2 billion. Obligations for experimental development increased by 7.2% to $51.8 billion in FY 2017.

Federal Funding for Research
In FY 2017, obligations for research accounted for 56.2% of all federal R&D obligations. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) accounted for the largest share of federal research obligations (48.4%) with $32.2 billion in FY 2017.

The Department of Energy (DOE) accounted for 14.9% ($9.9 billion) of total FY 2017 federal research obligations, followed by the Department of Defense (DOD) with 11.3% ($7.5 billion), NSF with 8.5% ($5.7 billion), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with 6.0% ($4.0 billion), and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) with 3.4% ($2.3 billion). Agency shares of total research obligations in FY 2016 were similar to those in FY 2017.

Federal obligations for basic research ($32.3 billion) remained stable between FY 2016 and FY 2017, increasing 0.1% (table 1).

Universities and colleges were the largest recipients of federal obligations for basic research (48.5%) at $15.7 billion in FY 2017, up 1.0% from $15.5 billion in FY 2016. Federal intramural performance accounted for the second largest category of basic research performance at 19.4%, or $6.3 billion in FY 2017. This represents an increase of 2.6% from $6.1 billion in FY 2016.

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Top R&D expenditures at some of the HBCUs

R&D Expenditures Rankings 2008 to 2017 – Click to view pdf document

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Video: National Science Foundation Presentation: Navigating the NSF Funding Process
June 21, 2017

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Top 2011 U.S universities for federal R&D grants and expenditures by academic institutions