EDUCATION
2011 ACADEMIC R&D SPENDING TRENDS
It is the second census to reflect a major revision of the survey by the agency. The updated survey gives departments of chemistry and chemical engineering more ways than ever to see how they stack up in terms of research spending. For instance, the survey data now contain detailed breakdowns of funding sources at the level of individual departments. In years past, the survey only indicated the proportion of research dollars that a given chemistry department had received from the federal government. Now, the numbers show how much of a department’s funds are kicked in by the university itself, as well as by industry, state, and local sources. (Except where indicated, all of the spending figures cited in this story are in current dollars and do not take into account the effect of inflation.)
NSF census, two years into a revamp, has more details about CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT FUNDING SOURCES CARMEN DRAHL, C&EN WASHINGTON
“FOLLOW THE MONEY” is a popular say-
Every year, the National Science Foundation updates its comprehensive census of academic R&D spending. These data are an indicator of a university’s research capacity and can be a factor in faculty and graduate student recruitment. This year, NSF made available data from fiscal 2011.
ing for a reason. For researchers and administrators, trends in academic research funding can tell many stories. They can be a harbinger of a department on the rise, or they may point out a rival university’s investment priorities.
U.S. academic science and engineering R&D spending:
$61.9
Chemistry R&D spending:
$1.8
billion
Math & computer sciences 4% Social sciences 6%
INTERACTIVE ONLINE
billion
Math & computer sciences 4% Social sciences 5%
SPENDING BY FIELD
Other sciences 2% Life sciencesa 59%
Geosciences 6%
For additional tables and an interactive graphic, which includes the top 100 chemistry spenders and where you can compare universities head-to-head, visit http://cenm.ag/11rd.
Other physical sciencesb 5% Chemistry 3%
Diferent fields’ pieces of the pie have barely changed over the past decade.
Other sciences 2%
Geosciences 5%
Life sciencesa 60%
Other physical sciencesb 5% Chemistry 3% Other engineering 14%
Other engineering 13%
Materials engineering 1% Chemical engineering 1%
Materials engineering 1% Chemical engineering 1%
Academic R&D spending, FY 2011 = $ 61.9 billion
Academic R&D spending, FY 2001 = $ 32.8 billion
NOTE: Institutional fiscal years. Spending figures do not account for inflation. a Includes agricultural, biological, medical, and other life sciences. b Includes astronomy, physics, and other physical sciences. SOURCE: National Science Foundation, WebCASPAR Database System
WHO PAYS? Institutions picked up most of the slack when federal financing of academic R&D slowed in the mid-2000s.
$ Billions 70 60 50
BIG MOVERS
◼ All other sources ◼ Industry ◼ State & local government ◼ Institutional funds ◼ Federal government
20 10 0 1972
77
82
87
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Vanderbilt University moved up
places in chemical engineering spending rankings
places in chemistry spending rankings
55 21
40 30
NOTE: Institutional fiscal years, beginning with 1972, the first year which data are available. SOURCE: Higher Education Research & Development Survey: Fiscal Year 2011, National Science Foundation, 2013
University of Alabama jumped
92
34
97
02
07
DECEMBER 9, 2013
SCHOOL SPENDING ON CHEMICAL R&D This table ranks top chemistry spenders and breaks down funding sources SHARE OF TOTAL EXPENDITURES IN 2011, %a FEDERAL STATE/LOCAL GOVT GOVT INDUSTRY INSTITUTION
RANK 2011 2010 $ THOUSANDS
2001
2010
2011
ANNUAL CHANGE 2010–11
2001–11
2007A
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 1 6 7 3 5 8 11 9 4
Rutgers U California Inst. of Technology Northwestern U Georgia Tech U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Harvard U U of California, San Diego U of Texas, Austin U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Massachusetts Inst. of Technology Total, first 10 institutions
$13,190 $34,150 $38,813 15,357 35,612 35,393 13,733 28,303 32,213 9,027 27,354 31,424 20,091 30,092 29,306 17,446 28,723 29,007 11,131 26,387 27,326 11,640 25,089 26,985 12,652 26,032 26,806 18,063 29,110 26,376 $142,330 $290,852 $303,649
85.6% 77.1 73.2 62.4 80.8 83.9 84.2 59.6 79.5 87.9 77.5%
1.6% 1.1 0.0 0.8 0.0 0.2 1.8 3.2 2.1 0.1 1.1%
2.5% 6.6 0.0 11.7 3.7 3.4 2.8 2.5 3.2 7.1 4.4%
9.0% 2.0 17.4 22.5 11.2 0.0 4.2 21.7 14.5 2.2 10.4%
13.7% -0.6 13.8 14.9 -2.6 1.0 3.6 7.6 3.0 -9.4 4.4%
11.4% 8.7 8.9 13.3 3.8 5.2 9.4 8.8 7.8 3.9 7.9%
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
19 33 20 25 13 22 16 18 21 10
Texas A&M U Vanderbilt U U of Washington, Seattle U of Utah U of Colorado U of Massachusetts, Amherst Stanford U Pennsylvania State U Purdue U U of California, Berkeley Total, first 20 institutions
17,206 3,171 9,597 10,086 14,229 10,509 15,752 18,042 12,194 21,339 $274,455
23,075 24,616 15,577 24,577 23,010 23,616 20,114 23,175 24,147 23,115 21,590 22,893 23,622 22,859 23,220 22,809 21,944 22,146 25,549 22,124 $512,700 $535,579
40.6 86.1 89.9 46.7 81.3 64.5 83.2 56.1 73.6 64.3 73.6%
0.8 0.0 1.8 0.0 0.0 0.6 1.2 0.0 0.1 5.7 1.0%
2.2 0.7 3.6 1.7 0.7 5.9 4.4 2.2 4.7 8.3 3.9%
30.2 9.8 2.3 50.8 10.2 26.9 9.8 31.4 16.1 11.7 14.5%
6.7 57.8 2.6 15.2 -4.3 6.0 -3.2 -1.8 0.9 -13.4 4.5%
3.6 22.7 9.4 8.7 5.0 8.1 3.8 2.4 6.1 0.4 6.9%
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
12 15 17 24 26 23 36 32 34 47
U of Michigan U of Arizona U of Wisconsin, Madison Indiana U Cornell U U of California, Los Angeles U of Chicago U of Pittsburgh U of Akron Princeton U Total, first 30 institutions
10,957 24,956 21,971 9,908 23,709 21,528 12,935 23,499 20,958 14,316 20,882 20,716 11,013 19,365 20,610 15,071 20,935 20,225 9,403 15,007 19,583 7,943 16,002 18,082 8,108 15,310 17,793 11,314 12,319 17,608 $385,423 $704,684 $734,653
68.7 69.4 62.2 43.1 82.5 76.4 79.2 62.7 17.6 44.6 70.3%
0.0 0.3 6.7 0.0 0.8 2.1 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 1.1%
1.9 1.6 1.2 13.0 2.3 2.8 1.5 1.4 5.9 4.4 3.8%
27.2 27.5 20.9 30.6 11.4 9.0 12.1 34.0 54.4 48.8 17.9%
-12.0 -9.2 -10.8 -0.8 6.4 -3.4 30.5 13.0 16.2 42.9 4.3%
7.2 8.1 4.9 3.8 6.5 3.0 7.6 8.6 8.2 4.5 6.7%
31 32 33
31 28 42
16,747 18,632 14,501
16,939 16,776 16,181
1.1 -10.0 11.6
5.6 3.3 nm
34 35 36 37 38 39 40
14 27 30 41 40 50 37
U of California, Irvine Johns Hopkins Ub U of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center U of South Carolina Stony Brook U, SUNY Virginia Tech U of Florida U of Minnesota U of Southern Mississippi U of California, San Francisco Total, first 40 institutions
9,228 23,799 6,730 18,983 6,461 16,791 11,359 14,739 8,860 14,774 4,741 12,012 13,845 14,961 $468,634 $870,623
15,759 15,333 14,956 14,550 14,540 14,044 13,993 $887,724
45.9 61.8 55.1 61.4 67.8 90.5 91.3 70.3%
0.0 0.6 7.6 3.8 0.9 3.1 0.6 1.7%
0.1 1.3 11.4 6.3 8.3 5.7 1.1 3.9%
53.4 34.2 22.1 25.3 17.3 0.0 2.8 17.8%
-33.8 -19.2 -10.9 -1.3 -1.6 16.9 -6.5 2.0%
5.5 8.6 8.8 2.5 5.1 11.5 0.1 6.6%
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
29 56 48 46 35 38 51 58 49 53
U of Kansas Yale U Columbia U U of California, Davis U of Pennsylvania Emory U U of Southern California Florida State U Arizona State U, Tempe Rice U Total, first 50 institutions
3,099 6,751 7,983 6,771 11,110 8,037 8,010 11,635 12,416 7,390 $551,836
16,909 13,754 10,438 13,704 12,251 13,457 12,479 13,412 15,096 13,374 14,851 13,230 11,559 12,842 10,404 12,741 12,149 12,699 11,238 12,249 $997,997 $1,019,186
80.1 60.9 88.5 78.3 92.6 56.5 75.4 66.4 73.6 60.4 70.7%
3.2 0.0 1.1 3.8 0.0 0.0 1.0 1.3 1.0 7.1 1.7%
2.6 1.7 1.2 2.3 0.8 2.0 12.6 0.3 2.2 7.0 3.9%
10.0 32.0 4.9 9.2 3.3 38.4 9.3 30.4 18.5 12.3 17.7%
-18.7 31.3 9.8 7.5 -11.4 -10.9 11.1 22.5 4.5 9.0 2.1%
16.1 7.3 5.4 7.1 1.9 5.1 4.8 0.9 0.2 5.2 6.3%
$1,007,814 $1,747,771 $1,785,614
69.7%
2.6%
3.6%
18.7%
2.2%
5.9%
TOTAL, ALL INSTITUTIONS
9,863 12,124 na
72.8 97.2 57.3
3.7 0.0 27.9
4.4 0.3 6.7
9.7 1.8 6.6
NOTE: Institutional fiscal years. a Figures may not sum to 100% because other funding sources, such as nonprofit organizations, are not listed. b Includes funding for the Applied Physics Lab. na = not available. nm = not meaningful. SOURCE: National Science Foundation, WebCASPAR Database System
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DECEMBER 9, 2013
EDUCATION
TOP 25 UNIVERSITIES IN 2011 R&D SPENDING Few of chemistry’s top spenders place in the overall top 25 RANK
PHYSICAL MATH & LIFE SCIENCESb COMPUTER OTHER CHEMISTRY SCIENCESa ENGINEERING (INCL. CHEM) GEOSCIENCES SCIENCES SCIENCES OVERALL
OVERALL CHEMISTRY $ MILLIONS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
32 21 13 23 68 7 40 26 28 17 45 38 43 56 15 18 25 9 11 85 44 10
23 24 25
37 20 33
Johns Hopkins Uc U of Michigan U of Washington, Seattle U of Wisconsin, Madison Duke U U of California, San Diego U of California, San Francisco U of California, Los Angeles U of Pittsburgh Stanford U U of Pennsylvania U of Minnesota Columbia U Ohio State U U of Colorado Pennsylvania State U Cornell U U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Texas A&M U Washington U in St. Louis U of California, Davis Massachusetts Inst. of Technology U of Florida U of California, Berkeley U of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Total, listed institutions TOTAL, ALL INSTITUTIONS
$17 22 24 21 9 27 14 20 18 23 13 15 13 11 23 23 21 27 25 7 13 26
$862 759 717 686 861 607 981 689 770 556 726 600 603 488 440 272 513 609 261 644 507 119
$855 211 108 116 56 109 0 68 33 122 41 100 55 166 102 279 93 0 264 20 87 305
$176 48 53 88 21 62 14 75 29 97 30 40 49 32 98 61 94 36 46 16 29 115
$45 16 180 49 21 139 0 17 11 26 2 29 81 11 95 58 18 28 131 11 28 40
$128 21 35 28 15 41 0 24 11 31 19 26 23 41 14 54 23 20 21 6 13 58
$69 164 21 56 44 46 0 69 26 37 35 54 30 56 38 60 39 70 33 10 34 56
$2,136 1,220 1,113 1,023 1,018 1,004 995 942 880 868 852 848 841 794 786 784 780 763 758 707 698 694
15 22 16
507 213 592
93 164 0
36 90 16
8 13 0
9 6 20
33 183 35
686 671 663
$465
$14,582
$3,447
$1,452
$1,056
$689
$1,298
$22,525
$1,786
$37,232
$10,045
$4,779
$3,167
$2,371
$4,295
$61,891
NOTE: Institutional fiscal years. Totals may not sum because of rounding. a Includes agricultural, biological, medical, and other life sciences. b Includes astronomy, chemistry, physics, and other physical sciences. c Includes Applied Physics Lab expenditures. SOURCE: National Science Foundation, WebCASPAR Database System
in 2011 was the University of Texas, Austin. The data make clear just how much Science and engineering Universities fund science and engineersources of funding vary at universities R&D spending increased ing R&D through a variety of sources, such that have invested the most in chemistry as the federal government; R&D. The data also illustrate Portion of chemistry industry, state and local govthat despite vast changes in spending funded by ernment; and institutional the scientific landscape over from 2010, accounting for inflation industry at Indiana funds. A given department’s the past decade, the various University: percentage of institutional all of which received more than 10% of scientific disciplines still receive essentially identical R&D funds, however, can their chemistry funds from industry. The pieces of the overall academic vary from the single digits to industry figure is higher in departments spending pie. more than 50%. The top 10 of chemical engineering, where all institu(highest in the top 50) spenders on chemistry R&D The lion’s share of acations averaged 13.6% of spending funded by demic R&D funds goes to the had, on average, a lower perbusiness. life sciences, and so it follows that the topcentage of institutional funds, 10.4%, than Data for this article were drawn primarspending universities in academic R&D the overall average of 18.7%. ily from NSF’s WebCASPAR database of overall are big life sciences spenders. None Most chemistry departments received academic science and engineering statisof the top five chemistry spenders made small percentages of their funds from tics, which can be accessed online at webthe top 25 universities in research spending industry sources. Among caspar.nsf.gov. Further overall. all institutions, the averinformation came from Only school in the top In chemistry, there are overall top-dog age was 3.6%. Standouts five in spending for both NSF’s Higher Education schools. In fiscal 2011, Rutgers Univerincluded Georgia Tech, In- chemistry and chemical Research & Developsity spent the most money for chemistry diana University, Virginia ment Survey, which can engineering: R&D from all sources combined. The top Tech, and the University be viewed at nsf.gov/ chemical engineering research spender of Southern California, statistics/nsf13325. ◾
4.0%
13%
Georgia Tech
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