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‘Unprecedented’ 2-Year Decline for U.S. Science Funds

©istockphoto/Dr. Heinz Linke

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The numbers will not surprise anyone who has closely tracked federal budget discussions about science and technology in recent years. But that won’t make the data released Friday by the National Science Foundation any more palatable for those concerned about the American research enterprise.

The science foundation’s Division of Science Resources Statistics, the preeminent federal source of data about research in the United States, issued its first look at information about the 2007 fiscal year from its annual survey of academic research and development. The survey examines what colleges and universities report spending on scientific and other R&D, showing actual dollars on the ground as opposed to what Congress appropriated or federal agencies planned to allocate.

The data largely confirm the reality, evident from reports by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and other entities that monitor federal spending, that federal support for science has slowed considerably from the heady days of the early part of this decade, when Congress completed an effort to double spending on biomedical research.

But the extent of the downturn is stark, the NSF reports: For the second year in a row, federal funds for academic research in science and engineering failed to outpace inflation. That situation is “unprecedented,” the science foundation notes; never before in the 36 years that the NSF has produced this report have there been two consecutive years in which federal science spending has declined in current dollars.

As seen in the table below, colleges and universities spent $49.431 billion on research and development in the 2007 fiscal year, up 3.5 percent (or 0.8 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars) from 2006. Federal support rose to $30.441 billion, up 1.1 percent in current dollars and down 1.6 percent once adjusted for inflation. That follows a 0.2 percent decline in inflation adjusted dollars from 2005 to 2006:

College and University R&D Expenditures, Fiscal 2002-7

Source of Funds

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Federal government

$21,873

$24,771

$27,644

$29,203

$30,124

$30,441

State/local government

2,506

2,647

2,879

2,942

2,963

3,145

Industry

2,191

2,162

2,129

2,294

2,404

2,672

Institutional funds

7,134

7,664

7,753

8,261

9,057

9,655

Other

2,701

2,857

2,852

3,093

3,196

3,517

Total R&D Expenditures

36,405

40,100

43,258

45,793

47,743

49,431

The dip that these data confirm in federal support, which is by far the biggest source of money for academic research, deeply troubles college and university leaders. “Our global competitiveness depends on America’s having the best science and technology,” Joel Seligman, president of the University of Rochester, said in an e-mail. “To keep our lead, we must support it. It is vital that federal funding at least keep pace with our closest competitors in Europe and Asia.”

The impact is increasingly felt on campuses, Mark Wrighton, chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, said in a telephone interview Saturday. “We’re seeing really talented scientists lose their grants, not because they don’t have strong proposals, but because the grant money isn’t there. To say it’s demoralizing is an understatement. It deters postdocs and over time will erode our ability to have new applications from basic research.”

As the data above show, universities are turning to other sources to try to make up for the disappearing federal money. State and local government backing grew by 6.1 percent, and funds from other sources — nonprofit groups and other nongovernmental entities — rose by 10 percent. Industry-sponsored research, which dropped from 2001 to 2004, has increased since then and grew by 11.2 percent from 2006 to 2007. But that of course has its own issues, as concerns intensify — not least in Congress — about potential conflicts of interest as scientists depend more and more heavily on corporations for support.

Universities also tapped into their own endowment and gift funds to try to fill the gap. “Universities have had to dip into endowments or tuition or internal funds to keep the labs’ lights on if investigators are falling short in research grant competitions,” said Kei Koizumi, director of the R&D Budget and Policy Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Or they are using their own funds to get the labs equipped or built so they can better compete for increasingly scarce federal funds.”

“We are calling on private resources to provide more bridge funding for investigators,” said Wrighton of Washington University, which reported spending $573 million over all on academic R&D in 2007, up from $530 million, which placed it 18th on the NSF list.

Despite widespread agreement — pleaded for in a stream of recent reports and prescribed in federal legislation — on the need for the country to bolster its spending on the physical sciences, the NSF data show that financial support for the physical sciences is inconsistent. The table below, which shows how individual disciplines fared in federal support in 2007, reveal that funds for the physical sciences fell vis-a-vis inflation, the life sciences rose slightly, and engineering fields, comparatively, thrived. Certain individual fields, such as oceanography and mathematical sciences, also did pretty well:

Field

FY 2006 (in millions)

FY 2007 (in millions)

% Change, 2006-7

All R&D expenditures

$47,743

$49,431

3.5%

Computer sciences

1,438

1,417

-1.4

Environmental sciences

2,601

2,725

4.8

—Atmospheric sciences

508

492

-3.1

—Earth sciences

896

910

1.5

—Oceanography

839

996

18.6

—Environmental sciences (other)

358

327

-8.5

Life sciences

28,802

29,764

3.3

—Agricultural sciences

2,797

2,902

3.7

—Biological sciences

9,048

9,218

1.9

—Medical sciences

15,805

16,515

4.5

—Life sciences (other)

1,152

1,130

-1.9

Mathematical sciences

533

572

7.3

Physical sciences

3,812

3,842

0.8

—Astronomy

470

463

-1.5

—Chemistry

1,413

1,447

2.4

—Physics

1,610

1,613

0.2

—Physical sciences (other)

318

319

0.2

Psychology

875

863

-1.4

Social sciences

1,702

1,781

4.7

—Economics

338

349

3.3

—Political sciences

316

337

6.7

—Sociology

399

393

-1.5

—Social sciences (other)

648

701

8.2

Sciences (other)

888

949

7.0

Engineering

7,092

7,517

6.0

—Aeronautical /astronautical

385

424

10.1

—Bio/biomedical

477

537

12.8

—Chemical

560

602

7.5

—Civil

858

863

0.6

—Electrical

1,615

1,675

3.7

—Mechanical

1,048

1,130

7.8

—Metallurgical/materials

643

638

-0.8

—Engineering (other)

1,506

1,648

9.4

Wrighton and other university leaders acknowledge that the odds of altering the current trend line for federal support for academic research may be long, given the intense competition for increasingly scarce resources — especially in the short term, as the American economy seeps into what may be a recession. But they are hopeful that November’s election, whoever is elected, offers at least the promise of a new context for the conversation.

“Unfortunately we have not made the case [for increasing federal backing of academic R&D] strongly enough so far,” said Wrighton. “But we have a tremendous opportunity to work with the campaigns. Each of the campaigns has been emphasizing the need to strengthen the American economy, and we obviously believe that doing that is tightly linked to advancing the sciences.”

Below are tables that show the institutions that spent the most on academic R&D over all and in several subcategories in the 2007 fiscal year. Over all, the top 20 institutions accounted for about 30 percent of all university spending. The biggest change from 2006 to 2007 was at Duke University, which the NSF attributed to a hefty increase in funding from industry as well as from the National Institutes of Health.

Top 20 Institutions in Academic R&D Spending, 2006-7

 

2006 (in millions)

2007 (in millions)

Johns Hopkins U.

1,500

1,554

U of California-San Francisco

796

843

U of Wisconsin-Madison

832

841

U of California-Los Angeles

811

823

U of Michigan (all campuses)

800

809

U of California-San Diego

755

799

Duke U

657

782

U of Washington

778

757

Ohio State U

652

720

Stanford U

679

688

Pennsylvania State U

644

652

U of Pennsylvania

676

648

Cornell U

649

642

U of Minnesota

595

624

Massachusetts Inst of Technology

601

614

U of California-Davis

573

601

U of Florida

565

593

Washington U-St. Louis

548

573

U of Pittsburgh

530

559

U of California-Berkeley

546

552

All other institutions

33,554

34,758

***

Academic R&D, Top 20 Institutions Without a Medical School, 2007

 

Total R&D Expenditures (in millions)

Massachusetts Inst of Technology

$614

U of California-Berkeley

552

Texas A&M U

544

U of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Ctr

497

U of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

474

Georgia Inst of Technology

473

U of Texas Austin

447

Purdue U

415

Virginia Tech

367

Scripps Research Inst

361

U of Maryland-College Park

360

U of Georgia

333

North Carolina State U

332

Rutgers U

312

SUNY Albany

309

Colorado State U

288

California Inst of Technology

285

Rockefeller U

234

Arizona State U

224

Iowa State U

217

***

R&D Expenditures, Top 20 Minority-Serving Institutions, 2007

 

Total R&D Expenditures (000s)

Federal R&D Expenditures (000s)

U of New Mexico

$177,430

$123,039

U of Texas Health Science Ctr.-San Antonio

160,282

95,610

New Mexico State U main campus

148,120

100,773

Florida International U

90,903

52,141

U of Texas El Paso

39,965

21,018

U of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences

38,863

31,955

Howard U

38,020

33,996

Jackson State U

36,888

30,980

Meharry Medical College

33,218

31,263

CUNY City College

32,840

21,776

U of Texas-San Antonio

30,542

20,545

Morehouse School of Medicine

27,886

23,230

North Carolina A&T State U

24,044

15,362

Hampton U

24,017

23,836

U of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras

21,379

16,114

U of Puerto Rico Mayaguez

19,813

11,164

U of the Virgin Islands

17,842

12,561

Florida A&M U

16,541

14,502

Texas A&M U Kingsville

13,794

5,067

California State U Northridge

12,412

7,339

Doug Lederman

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Comments

OMG, Doug.

Dang, Doug — $21 million less for Computer Science research? Well, the Google gang must have needed that $25 million Boeing 767.

http://online.wsj.com/public/arti...fDIn9uNjtiss_20070707.html?mod=blogs

http://searchengineland.com/070913-075208.php

And $12 million less for psychology research? What will the world do, without studies such as “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition?”

http://www.awitness.org/journal/p...ivated_social_cognition_summary.html

How will the USA survive? Oh, my ..

L.L., at 1:55 pm EDT on August 25, 2008

Sure there are a lot of wasted tax dollars, but how funny will it be when you or someone in your family is sick or gets cancer? And I guess it’s no big deal that we don’t lead the world in electronics or anything else anymore; just send your dollars to China and India.

GB, So funny, at 6:45 pm EDT on August 25, 2008

Huh?

LL, I don’t see how a piece about spoiled computer geeks or a complaint over the results of a 5-year old study is relevant to this story. The point is that science continues to sink on the priority list for this country to the detriment of all of us.

Another disappointing bit I recently learned about the Chicago metro region (and probably replicated around the country)— a foundation survey identified about 1,200 organizations devoted to promoting the arts and humanities and only 12 devoted to science. We must get the sciences back on the front burner.

MM, at 8:15 pm EDT on August 25, 2008

Never been to D.C.?

” .. The point is that science continues to sink on the priority list for this country to the detriment of all of us ..”

Sir/Madam: having lived in D.C. — if I had a dime every time someone predicted the end of civilization if they did not get 100% of their funding demand — I’d have a jet like the Google boys.

Yeah — science is a problem in the U.S., now that Asia is competitive with the U.S.

So — who’s going to make U.S. students study more? Can’t wait to see that happen.

L.L., at 11:10 pm EDT on August 25, 2008

Free Enterprise Makes US Great

See following news summary — bet it didn’t cost me (or other tax payers) a dime.

In a new paper, IBM researchers are detailing what IBM calls a significant breakthrough in the field of nanotechnology that could lead to new developments in processor technology and the field of photonics. The IBM researchers are detailing how they were able to control light emissions from carbon nanotube transistors, which could lead to new ways to develop and power new processors. In the field of nanotechnology, IBM, HP and Intel are all working on new techniques to develop processors through their research divisions.

RamJet, Thinker, at 10:40 am EDT on August 26, 2008

welfare for companies

someone commented that IBM is making breakthroughs for free!?!

Your (or at least NY state) tax dollars go to support the Nanotechnology Center at SUNY-Albany; a multi-million dollar research center FOR IBM, on University property, paid for with FED dollars that contributes (as fas as anyone at the SUNYA can tell) ZERO dollars back to SUNY or the students (perhaps a few grad. students get funded). In return, IBM gets a PUBLIC PAID FOR research arm so IBM CAN KEEP THE PROFIT!

I’m tired of corporate welfare; FUND THE UNIVERSITIES! That’s what makes America competitive.

cirque, at 11:25 am EDT on August 28, 2008

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