Colleges and universities spent $40.1 billion on research and development in the 2003 fiscal year, up 10.2 percent from the previous year and 100 percent from 1993.
The data were released by the National Science Foundation, which regularly studies research spending in higher education.
A majority of the research funds came from Washington. Federal research and development spending in 2003 was $24.7 billion, up 13 percent from the previous year. Other significant sources of research support include state and local governments, businesses and institutional funds. Industry support for R&D in higher education fell by 1 percent in 2003, to $2.16 billion. Other categories all reported increases.
Nearly three-fourths of total research spending is for basic research, but applied research outpaced basic research slightly in the rate of increase, 11 percent to 10 percent.
Within the sciences and engineering, the top area of support, by far, is the medical sciences. The following table shows a breakdown, by disciplines.
R&D Expenditures by Higher Education in Science and Engineering, 2003
| Field | All Spending | Federal Spending |
| Agricultural sciences | $2,555,000,000 | $762,000,000 |
| Biological sciences | $7,392,000,000 | $5,017,000,000 |
| Computer sciences | $1,304,000,000 | $936,000,000 |
| Environmental sciences | $2,188,000,000 | $1,440,000,000 |
| Mathematical sciences | $429,000,000 | $295,000,000 |
| Medical sciences | $12,787,000,000 | $8,249,000,000 |
| Physical sciences | $3,273,000,000 | $2,353,000,000 |
| Psychology | $769,000,000 | $553,000,000 |
| Social sciences | $1,661,000,000 | $667,000,000 |
| Engineering | $5,999,000,000 | $3,608,000,000 |
Outside of the sciences, spending levels are much smaller and total $1.37 billion. Education is the top subject area, at $597 million, followed by business and management at $165 million, humanities at $135 million, and social work at $56 million.
The NSF study also provides rankings of the top universities in R&D expenditures, a category in which Johns Hopkins University is No. 1.
Top 20 Universities in R&D Science Expenditures, 2003
| University and rank | All Spending | Federal Spending |
| 1. Johns Hopkins U. | $1,244,000,000 | $1,107,000,000 |
| 2. U. of California at Los Angeles | $849,000,000 | $421,000,000 |
| 3. U. of Michigan (all campuses) | $780,000,000 | $517,000,000 |
| 4. U. of Wisconsin at Madison | $721,000,000 | $396,000,000 |
| 5. U. of Washington | $685,000,000 | $566,000,000 |
| 6. U. of California at San Francisco | $671,000,000 | $372,000,000 |
| 7. U. of California at San Diego | $647,000,000 | $400,000,000 |
| 8. Stanford U. | $603,000,000 | $484,000,000 |
| 9. U. of Pennsylvania | $565,000,000 | $416,000,000 |
| 10. Cornell U. (all campuses) | $555,000,000 | $321,000,000 |
| 11. Pennsylvania State U. (all campuses) | $533,000,000 | $301,000,000 |
| 12. Duke U. | $520,000,000 | $307,000,000 |
| 13. U. of Minnesota (all campuses) | $509,000,000 | $293,000,000 |
| 14. U. of California at Berkeley | $507,000,000 | $238,000,000 |
| 15. Ohio State U. (all campuses) | $496,000,000 | $198,000,000 |
| 16. U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $494,000,000 | $266,000,000 |
| 17. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology | $486,000,000 | $356,000,000 |
| 18. U. of California at Davis | $482,000,000 | $208,000,000 |
| 19. Washington U. in St. Louis | $474,000,000 | $357,000,000 |
| 20. Baylor College of Medicine | $462,000,000 | $303,000,000 |
The universities in the rankings aren't entirely equivalent. Johns Hopkins leads the pack in large part because of the grants awarded to the Applied Physics Laboratory, which received $582 million in federal R&D support in 2003. These rankings also group together some university systems, but not others. Five University of California campuses appear on the top 20 list.
Federal spending on research and development remains highly concentrated, the data show. The top 20 institutions noted above account for 32 percent of federally sponsored R&D spending.
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