This section presents data on the distribution of academic R&D expenditures along several key dimensions, including the type of R&D, the characteristics of receiving institutions, and fields of S&E.

In the collection of statistical data, R&D is composed of three types: basic research, applied research, and experimental development. Of the nearly $90 billion spent on academic R&D in 2021, 62% of this amount ($56 billion) went to the performance of basic research, down from 65% in 2012. About 28% was spent on applied research and 10% on experimental development. These proportions have remained roughly stable since 2012, when 26% of academic R&D was spent on applied research and 9% on experimental development (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 9).

Federal support for basic research at academic institutions increased more rapidly between 1997 and 2005 than in any earlier period, spurred in particular by the effort to double the research budget at NIH (Kaiser 2002). That support began declining in 2011 (in constant dollar terms) but started to increase again in 2016. In 2021, federal support for basic research at academic institutions was 11% higher than in 2016, after adjusting for inflation (Figure URD-6) but remained below its level in 2011. In contrast, basic research support from nonfederal sources has increased fairly consistently in constant dollars since 1983. Federal and nonfederal support for applied research and experimental development were higher in 2021 than in 2011 (Figure URD-7).

The level and distribution of spending on academic R&D vary across institutions.^{​The HERD Survey asks institutions for data on separately budgeted R&D expenditures, in part to avoid the conceptual and measurement challenges in compiling data on expenditures for research activities carried out as part of the ordinary expectations of faculty members. Separately budgeted R&D generally includes sponsored R&D, the costs of which are paid for by gifts, grants, and contracts, as well as institutions’ own support of R&D through budgeted accounts set aside for that purpose.} Out of 3,733 postsecondary degree–granting institutions in the United States in 2020, 620 reported more than $1 million in R&D expenditures in that year (NCSES HERD 2021: Table A-5).^{​The total number of degree-granting institutions is reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (see De Brey, Zhang, and Duffy [2022:Table 317.40]). The HERD Survey is distributed to two populations: institutions with more than $1 million in R&D expenditures per year and those with at least $150,000 but less than $1 million in R&D expenditures per year. The number of institutions in each population is found in NCSES (HERD 2021: Table A-3).} The 131 doctoral universities with very high research activity, based on the Carnegie Classification as of 2018, spent nearly 75% of all reported academic R&D funds in 2021.^{​The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/) is widely used to characterize differences in academic institutions. The Basic Classification categorizes academic institutions primarily based on highest degree conferred, level of degree production, and research activity. This report identifies the 131 doctoral institutions with very high research activity based on the Carnegie Classification as of 2018, as reported in the 2018 Data File of Carnegie Classifications for each institution, accessed from the American Council on Education (https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/CCIHE2018-PublicDataFile.xlsx). This categorization does not include some academic institutions that are top R&D performers but whose training programs are exclusively focused on a small number of fields (e.g., institutions focused exclusively on biomedical research and training). The relative share of academic R&D expenditures represented by these 131 institutions is calculated by summing the institutional responses reported in NCSES (HERD 2021: Table 21).} These institutions also awarded approximately 80% of U.S. doctoral degrees in S&E in 2021 (NCSES SED 2021: Table 1-2) and enrolled more than 81% of doctoral students in those fields (NCSES GSS 2021: Table 5-3).^{​In this report, S&E fields include the health fields.}

In 2021, the top 30 institutions, ranked by total R&D spending, accounted for over 42% of all U.S. academic R&D (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 21). This concentration of R&D spending in a relatively small number of institutions is a long-standing characteristic of U.S. academic R&D spending (see [NSB Indicators 2018: Figure 5-5]). Furthermore, the composition of the top-ranked institutions, as measured by academic R&D expenditures, has not shifted significantly over the past two decades (Table URD-2). Of the 10 top-ranked institutions in 2001, 9 institutions remained among the top 10 in 2021, although they were in a different order. Of the 30 top-ranked institutions in 2001, 24 institutions remained among the top 30 in 2021.

In 2021, public universities were responsible for 65% of academic R&D spending, and private universities spent the remainder; this proportion has remained roughly stable for more than a decade (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 17). R&D spending is more concentrated among private institutions. In 2021, the top 25 private universities spent more than 75% of the private academic R&D total, whereas the top 25 public universities spent around 46% of the public total (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 37 and Table 38).

Sources of funding for academic R&D in public and private universities differ (Figure URD-8). Since at least 2012, private universities have received a greater share of their R&D spending from federal support, whereas institutional funds and funding from state and local government have been more prevalent sources for public universities. Within the share funded by federal sources, HHS contributed to R&D spending at private universities to a greater degree than at public universities, and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) contributed relatively more to spending at public universities (Figure URD-9).

Spending on biomedical R&D exerts considerable influence on overall patterns in academic R&D spending, such that more R&D support is concentrated in academic institutions that have medical schools. In 2021, 75% of all federally sourced spending for academic R&D went to institutions that also house a medical school, totaling $37 billion. Of the federally supported R&D at institutions with a medical school, $24.4 billion was provided by HHS, or about 89% of all HHS funds for academic R&D in that year (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 26 and Table 72). Institutions with medical schools accounted for more than half of the R&D spending supported by funds from each federal agency except USDA, although few agencies beyond NIH directly supported R&D at the medical schools themselves (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 26 and Table 72). These institutions also received 65% of nonfederal support for R&D spending in 2021, amounting to $28 billion (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 26, Table 69, and Table 72).

Minority-serving institutions (MSIs) include a diverse array of more than 800 federally designated institutions including, but not limited to, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), high-Hispanic-enrollment (HHE) institutions, and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs).^{​For the list of institutions qualifying as MSIs, by designation, see the NASA Minority Serving Institutions Exchange (https://msiexchange.nasa.gov/institutions).} The HBCUs are institutions that are defined under the Higher Education Act of 1965 as those that were established to serve Black or African American (hereafter referred to as Black) students in the years before desegregation; according to the U.S. Department of Education, 103 HBCUs are operating as of 2022 (NCES 2023). In 2021, 56 HBCUs reported R&D expenditures in the HERD Survey, and their federally supported R&D spending totaled $339 million in constant 2012 dollars (Figure URD-10; NCSES HERD 2021: Table 32 and Table 84).^{​The HERD Survey collects data from two populations. Institutions with at least $1 million in annual R&D spending respond to the standard-form HERD Survey, whereas those with at least $150,000 but less than $1 million in annual R&D spending respond to the short-form HERD Survey. The totals presented here include spending by HBCUs in the standard-form and short-form populations. Because of the $150,000 spending threshold, some HBCUs reported R&D spending for only a subset of the years from 2012 through 2021.} These expenditures constitute less than 1% of total federally financed for U.S. academic R&D in 2021 (Figure URD-4). In 2012, 60 HBCUs responding to the survey reported $516 million in federally funded R&D expenditures, indicating that federal funding of R&D spending at HBCUs declined by 34% in constant dollars over this period. The federally funded expenditures reported in 2021 were 2% higher than the total reported in 2020, but it is not clear if this increase indicates a reversal of the long-term trend (Figure URD-10).

HHE institutions are universities in which Hispanic or Latino (hereafter referred to as Hispanic) students constitute at least 25% of full-time equivalent (FTE) student enrollment.^{​HHE institutions are defined by the U.S. Department of Education as nonprofit public and private institutions of higher education whose FTE enrollment of undergraduate students is at least 25% Hispanic, according to data that institutions reported in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. For more detail on HHE institutions, see the Indicators 2022 report “Higher Education in Science and Engineering.”} In 2021, the 130 HHE institutions reporting expenditures in the HERD Survey spent a total of around $8.8 billion on academic R&D (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 34). The federal government provided around $4 billion (about 46%) of this spending, a lower percentage than its share of support for academic R&D at all institutions. The distribution of academic R&D spending across fields at HHE institutions did not differ substantially from the distribution by field for all U.S. universities (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 13 and Table 34).

Several 4-year TCUs reported R&D expenditures above the $150,000 reporting threshold in recent years; in some years, a few reported over $1 million in R&D spending.^{​The list of institutions currently designated as TCUs can be found on the NASA Minority Serving Institutions Exchange (https://msiexchange.nasa.gov/institutions?i=75&qo[0]=is&qp[0]=categories__name&qv[0]=Tribal%20College%20or%20University). Those reporting over $150,000 but less than $1 million in R&D expenditures (responding to the HERD Survey short form) can be identified from NCSES HERD 2021: Table 82. Those with R&D expenditures over $1 million in 2021 can be identified from NCSES HERD 2021: Table 5.} Four TCUs were represented in the population of reporting institutions for the HERD Survey in 2021, with R&D spending totaling approximately $3.1 million (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 82).

In 2021, academic R&D spending at institutions located in individual states ranged from about $93.0 million in Wyoming to about $11.2 billion in California (NCSES HERD 2021: Table 67). Differences in the level of academic R&D across states stem from the size of the states’ populations, the number and size of the academic research institutions in each state, and the interest and success of those institutions in attracting external research funding. Among the top 30 institutions ranked by R&D expenditures, most were public universities in states with large populations (e.g., California, Texas, Florida, Ohio) or prominent private universities (Table URD-2). Normalizing for the populations of the states (i.e., dividing total academic R&D spending in each state by that state’s population) provides an alternative perspective on geographical distribution of academic R&D spending. Some states with small populations, such as Maryland and Massachusetts, ranked highly, whereas some states with large populations, such as Texas and Florida, ranked much lower when viewed this way (Figure URD-11). More details on R&D spending in specific states can be found at the Indicators website (https://ncses.nsf.gov/indicators/states/).

The distribution of academic R&D spending across research fields has changed little over the past decade (Figure URD-12). The life sciences have long accounted for the bulk of academic R&D spending, reaching 58% of the total in 2021. Research funded by federal and nonfederal sources showed similar distribution patterns across fields (Figure URD-13 and Figure URD-14). In contrast, the contributions of the various federal departments and agencies to academic research spending differed widely by S&E field (Figure URD-15). For example, HHS supported most academic R&D in life sciences, psychology, and social sciences, whereas the Department of Defense (DOD) was one of the top two agencies funding research in computer and information sciences, engineering, and mathematics and statistics. NSF was the leading funder among all federal agencies of academic R&D in mathematics and statistics; geosciences, atmospheric sciences, and ocean sciences; and physical sciences. NSF also provided a considerable share of funding for computing and information sciences research.