US higher education R&D (HERD) expenditures increased in FY17, reaching $75.3 billion, a 4.7% increase, according to the HERD Survey by the NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. This Survey consisted of 903 institutions that granted degrees and spent a minimum of $150,000 on R&D during the fiscal year. Federal R&D funding for universities has grown over the past two years, a first since 2009–2011, increasing 1.7% to $40.3 billion in FY17, while nonfederal funding rose 3.7% to $34.9 billion.

The numbers presented below are based on subset of survey results of 644 institutions performing at least $1 million in R&D annually. Of the total university R&D funding, $46.5 billion was allocated to basic research, $21.5 billion for applied research and experimental development received $7.2 billion, representing 62%, 29% and 10% of total university R&D funding, respectively.

The federal government represented nearly the same share of total university R&D funding as the previous year at 54%, which is the lowest share since the survey’s inception in 1953. Federal funding rose 3.7% in FY17 in constant dollars.

Universities’ own funding sources were instrumental to HERD funding in FY17, providing $18.9 billion in funding, a 5.1% increase, and representing 25% of total university HERD and 54% of overall nonfederal funding. Additionally, nearly $12.1 billion, or 67%, of institutional spending came from universities’ own research accounts, which directly fund R&D activities. Unrecovered indirect costs, defined as “the amount of indirect costs that are not reimbursed to the institution for externally funded R&D,” were flat at $5.2 billion, while cost sharing commitments totaled $1.6 billion, up 6.7%.

Business funding for university R&D also rose in FY17, growing 5.1% to $4.4 billion, while state and local governments provided $4.2 billion, a 5.3% increase. University R&D funding from undifferentiated sources, such as foreign governments, other educational institutes, or donor gifts for research, grew 3.2% to $2.3 billion. Nonprofit organizations contributed $5.1 billion to HERD funding in FY17, the largest increase in funding of all nonfederal sources at 10.9%.

HERD expenditures for science R&D reached $58.9 billion, growing 4.7%. Specifically, life sciences HERD expenditures, which includes the fields of agricultural, biological and biomedical, and health sciences, as well as natural resources and conservation, jumped 5.4%. Chemistry and materials science HERD totaled $1.8 billion and $227.7 million, growing 1.0% and 31.4%, respectively.

Source: NSF