WASHINGTON -- Colleges and universities spent a total of $51.9 billion on research development in the 2008 fiscal year, with the federal government providing by far the biggest -- but a declining -- share of the total.

Those were among the findings of data from an annual survey by the National Science Foundation released Thursday.

The federal government has long been the biggest funder of academic R&D, but its share had been slowly dropping in recent years after climbing through the early part of this decade, as the federal government ramped up its spending on biomedical research, particularly. (When the NSF reports on data for 2009 and 2010 in the years ahead, though, the federal share is likely to show an increase again, given the extra funds the government has provided through the economic recovery package this year.)

To keep the academic research machine pumping, other contributors -- including states and industry -- have turned up their spending, with the institutions themselves leading the way, as seen in the table below:

Science and Engineering R&D Expenditures, 2003-8 (in millions)

Source: National Science Foundation

The NSF report also lists the top 20 institutions in terms of research expenditures, as seen in the table below. They accounted for about a third of the total expenditures by all institutions. As is true perennially, Johns Hopkins easily outdistances all other institutions because of its Applied Physics Laboratory, which accounts for more than about half of its expenditures.