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Academic Research
and Development |
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| Highlights |
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Financial Resources
for Academic R&D 
- In 2002, U.S. academic institutions spent $33
billion (in constant dollars) on research and development.
The Federal Government provided $19.0 billion, academic institutions
$6.7 billion, state and local governments $2.2 billion, industry
$2.1 billion, and other sources $2.4 billion. (More...)
- Over the past 3 decades (1972 to 2002), average annual
growth in R&D has been stronger for the academic sector
than for any other R&D-performing sector except the
nonprofit sector. During this period, academic R&D rose
from 0.23 to 0.35 percent of the gross domestic product. (More...)
- The academic sector performs more than half of the basic
research performed in the United States. Academic
R&D activities have been highly concentrated at the basic
research end of the R&D spectrum since the late 1950s. In
2002, an estimated 74 percent of academic R&D expenditures
went for basic research, 22 percent for applied research, and
4 percent for development. (More...)
- The Federal Government continues to provide the majority
of funds for academic R&D, although its share has been
declining steadily over the past 3 decades. The Federal Government
provided 59 percent of the funding for R&D performed in academic
institutions in 2001, down from 68 percent in 1972. (More...)
- After the Federal Government, academic institutions performing
R&D provided the second largest share of academic R&D
support. Except for a brief downturn in the first half of
the 1990s, the institutional share of academic R&D support
has been increasing steadily during the past 3 decades, nearly
doubling to reach 20 percent in 2001. (More...)
- Industrial R&D support to academic institutions has
grown more rapidly (albeit from a small base) than support
from all other sources during the past 3 decades. Industry's
share was 6.8 percent in 2001, compared with 2.8 percent in 1972.
However, industrial support still accounts for one of the smallest
shares of academic R&D funding. (More...)
- The concentration of academic R&D funds among the top research universities diminished between the mid-1980s
and mid-1990s but has remained relatively steady since
then. The share of those institutions in the group below the
top 100 increased from 17 to 20 percent of all academic R&D
funds during this period, balanced by a decline in the top 20
institutions' share. (More...)
- Between 1975 and 2001, there was a relative shift in
the share of academic R&D funds received by different
S&E fields. Shares increased for engineering, the life
sciences, and the computer sciences and declined for the social
sciences; the earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences; the physical
sciences; and psychology. (More...)
- The distribution of Federal and non-Federal funding of
academic R&D varies by field. In 2001, the Federal Government
supported about three-fourths of academic R&D expenditures
in both physics and atmospheric sciences but one-third or less
of the R&D in economics, political science, and the agricultural
sciences. (More...)
- Three agencies were responsible for about 86 percent
of Federal obligations for academic R&D: the National
Institutes of Health (66 percent), the National Science
Foundation (12 percent), and the Department of Defense
(8 percent). Federal agencies emphasize different science
and engineering fields in their funding of academic research,
with some, such as NIH, concentrating their funding in one field
and others, such as NSF, having more diversified funding patterns.
(More...)
- Total space for academic S&E research increased by
more than 38 percent between 1988 and 2001, up from about
112 million to 155 million net assignable square feet.
During this period, very little changed in the distribution
of research space across S&E fields: 90 percent of the space
continued to be distributed among six fields—the biological sciences,
the medical sciences, the agricultural sciences, engineering,
the physical sciences, and the earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences.
(More...)
- R&D equipment intensity—the share of all annual
R&D expenditures spent on research equipment—has
declined dramatically during the past 15 years. After reaching
a high of 7 percent in 1986, R&D equipment intensity declined
by about one-third, to 4.6 percent in 2001. (More...)
Doctoral Scientists
and Engineers in Academia
- Long-term growth of doctoral scientists and engineers
employed at U.S. universities and colleges was
slower than that in business, government, and other segments
of the economy. As a result, the academic employment share
dropped from 53 to 44 percent during the 1975–2001 period.
(More...)
- Full-time faculty positions increased more slowly than
postdoc and other full- and part-time positions, especially
at research universities. Those entering research universities
in 2001 with recently earned doctorates were more likely to receive
postdoc (53 percent) than faculty positions (30 percent). Of those
with a doctorate earned 4–7 years earlier who were employed
at research universities, less than 40 percent were in tenure
track positions in 2001, well below the experience of previous
decades. (More...)
- An academic researcher pool outside the regular faculty
ranks has grown over the years. As the faculty share of the
academic workforce has declined, more research activity is being
carried out by postdocs and others in full-time nonfaculty positions.
This change toward nonfaculty research effort was pronounced in
the 1990s. A long-term upward trend shows the number of those
whose primary activity is research increasing relative to total
employment. (More...)
- Among recent doctorate holders employed in academia,
the percentage of white males has fallen dramatically,
from 73 percent in 1975 to 41 percent in 2001. This
decline has been offset by increases in the hiring of women, Asian/Pacific
Islanders, and underrepresented minorities. (More...)
- More than 20 percent of scientists and engineers with
U.S. doctoral degrees employed at U.S.
universities and colleges in 2001 were foreign born. Computer
sciences and engineering had the highest percentages (39 and 35
percent, respectively), followed by mathematics (28 percent) and
the physical, life, and social sciences (from 23 to 19 percent).
These estimates are conservative, in that they do not include
those with doctorates from foreign institutions. (More...)
- The academic doctoral labor force has been aging during
the past quarter of a century. Both the mean and median age
have increased almost monotonically between 1975 and 2001. In
2001, a growing, albeit small, fraction of employment was made
up of individuals age 65 or older (4.0 percent) and 70 years or
older (1.1 percent). These percentages were slightly higher at
research universities than at other academic institutions. (More...)
- Graduate students play a key role in U.S. academic S&E research, and research assistantships were the
primary means of support for more than one-fourth of them. The number of research assistants has risen faster than overall
graduate enrollment. A shift is evident away from the physical
sciences and into the life sciences, reflecting changes in the
field distribution of academic research funds. (More...)
- In most fields, the percentage of academic researchers
with Federal support for their work was lower in 2001
than a decade earlier. Full-time faculty received Federal
support less frequently than other full-time doctoral employees,
who, in turn, were less frequently supported than postdocs, 74
percent of whom received Federal funds in 2001. (More...)
- In the view of academic researchers, at most a modest
shift has taken place during the past decade in the nature
of academic R&D. For both those who identified research
as their primary work activity and those who identified it as
their primary or secondary activity, the percentage who reported
basic research was only slightly smaller in 2001 than in 1993.
(More...)
Outputs
of Scientific and Engineering Research: Articles and Patents
- The number of U.S. scientific publications
has remained essentially flat since 1992, while output
has grown strongly in Western Europe and
several East Asian countries. The reasons for the flattening
of U.S. output are unknown and are under investigation. (More...)
- Scientific collaboration between institutions has increased
significantly over the past 2 decades, particularly between
countries. In 2001, nearly 1 in 5 articles had an international
coauthor, compared to 1 in 10 articles in 1988. (More...)
- The United States has the largest share of
internationally authored papers and collaborates with the
largest number of countries. The U.S. share, however, has
declined as other countries have increased and expanded their
ties, mainly with Western Europe, Japan, and several East Asian
countries. (More...)
- The S&E literature of the United States
is the most widely cited by non-U.S. scientists. The
volume and world share of citations of U.S. S&E literature,
however, have been falling as citations of S&E literature
from Western Europe and East Asia have increased. (More...)
- The rapid increase in citations of S&E research by
U.S. patents suggests the growing importance of science
in practical applications of technology. Over the past
2 decades, citations of research by U.S. patents rose more than
10-fold, primarily because of increases in patents related to
the life sciences. (More...)
- More than 3,200 U.S. patents were granted to
U.S. academic institutions in 2001, an increase
of more than 10- fold since the 1970s. The bulk of
academic patents were granted to a relatively small number of
institutions and were highly concentrated in life sciences applications.
(More...)
- Increases in licensing income and activity suggest growing
effort and success of university commercialization of their
products and technology. Income from licensing was more than
$850 million in FY 2001—more than double the amount in FY
1996—and new licenses and options rose by more than half during
this period. (More...)
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