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06.11
U.S. Support for Academic R&D Lagging Behind Other Nations
By IEEE-USA Staff
According to a recent report by
the Information Technology and Innovation
Foundation (ITIF), university research funding
in the United States is falling behind that of
other industrialized nations.
During the period 2000-2008, the
U.S. ranking in government-funded university R&D
slipped from 18th place to 22nd place among the
30 major economies tracked by the Organization
for Economic Co-Operation and Development
(OECD), despite that fact that U.S. government
investments increased by 17% as a share of GDP.
The slippage in ranking reflects the increased
rates of government spending in the other OECD
nations, which grew on average 24% during the
same period. Also, the increases in federal
support were partially offset by a 2% average
decline in state funding of university research.
As a consequence, in 2008, the
United States invested 0.24 percent of its GDP
in university-based research, compared to the
0.34 percent average of other OECD nations.
The trends are even less
encouraging in terms of business investments in
university-based research, with business funding
as a share of GDP declining by 7 percent,
putting the United States at 23rd out of 30
nations.
The ITIF notes that “the United
States ranks 6th in overall competitiveness and
dead last in the rate of change in
competitiveness over the last decade. The
takeaway here is that, in a globalized economy,
relative decline is decline, and this report
presents one more piece of evidence that the
U.S. innovation system is faltering.”
The report emphasizes the
increasingly significant role that
university-based research plays in the U.S.
innovation system, which began to gain
importance with the shut down of large corporate
central research laboratories over the past
three decades coupled with a decline in
corporate basic research funding conducted in
the United States by 3.2% during the period 1991
to 2008.
ITIF’s report red-flags this
trend, noting that “this shift to shorter-term,
less fundamental R&D risks a shrinking of the
knowledge pool from which firms draw the ideas
and information necessary to conduct later-stage
R&D and to bring innovations to the market. As
U.S. companies have shifted their R&D activities
upstream, universities have taken on a larger
role in the innovation system. Today,
universities perform 56 percent of all basic
research, compared to 38 percent in 1960.“
As a counterpoint to the ITIF
findings on research dollars invested, the
National Science Foundation recently reported
that the amount of science and engineering
research space at research-performing colleges
and universities increased 4% between FY 2007
and FY 2009, from 188 million to 196 million net
assignable square feet. This percentage increase
is nearly three times the amount of growth found
between FY 2005 and FY 2007 and reverses a trend
of slowing growth for traced back to the
2001-2003 follows two consecutive survey cycles
with slowing growth.
According to the NSF, research
space available for biological and biomedical
sciences research grew by 12% between 2007 and
2009, with much of the new facility located in
medical schools. Computer and information
science research space grew 8% during the same
period, while space for engineering-related
research increased by 6%.
The NSF report also shows
divergent trends in federal versus state funding
of new academic research research facilities.
While overall government funding of new
construction increased 43% to $2.7 billion, the
state and local government share increased 36%
in FY 2008–09. By constrast, the federal
government's funding decreased 35% to $236
million, representing 3% of total new
construction funds. The NSF concluded “this
federal government share of new construction
funding was the lowest reported for any period
since the survey began collecting these data.”
For more information, see:
University Research Funding: The
United States is Behind and Falling, Robert
Atkinson and Luke A. Stewart, The Information
Technology & Innovation Foundation (May 2011).
On-line at:
http://www.itif.org/files/2011-university-research-funding.pdf
Research Space at Academic
Institutions Increased 4% Between FY 2007 and FY
2009, Leslie Christovich, National Science
Foundation (NSF-11-312) (May 2011). On-line at:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf11312/
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todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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