University R&D Spending Falls

After decades of growth, R&D spending by higher education institutions dropped in 2012, by 1.1% from 2011, to $65.76 billion, according to a new National Science Foundation study. This marks the first inflation-adjusted decrease in university spending on R&D since 1974 and ends the average 5% increase universities have spent annually since 2009.

The downward trend is likely to continue for 2013, the first year that the across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect, observers note. “This is going backward, not forward,” says Hunter R. Rawlings III, president of the Association of American Universities.

Although overall R&D spending fell in 2012 compared with 2011, the downward trend wasn’t true for every field. For example, computer science and mathematical sciences reported higher R&D spending in 2012 than in 2011. For chemistry, however, R&D spending declined 1.9% to $1.75 billion. And chemical engineering was down 1.0% to $909 million.

Individual universities also faced different fates in 2012. Johns Hopkins University remained the top R&D spender, but its expenditures nonetheless declined 1.8% to $2.11 billion. Of the remaining top 30 universities, most had small expenditure increases. Harvard University and MIT were outliers, with double-digit jumps. A few institutions saw notable declines, though, including Ohio State University and the University of Florida.

Federal funds accounted for $40.13 billion, or 61%, of R&D spending in higher education, down 1.6% from 2011. The decrease, the NSF study shows, is primarily the result of cuts in funding by two agencies: the Department of Health & Human Services (which includes NIH) and the National Aeronautics & Space Administration.

Higher education R&D spending from other sources went up, however. The largest increase came from the universities themselves, which provided $13.67 billion in R&D spending, up almost $1 billion from 2011.

NSF’s study is based on data from 655 institutions provided as part of its Higher Education Research & Development Survey. For an in-depth analysis of 2011 university science and engineering spending, see page 34.