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News

Colleges With the Greatest Research-and-Development Spending in the Humanities, FY 2016

Almanac 2018 August 19, 2018

Only two of the top 50 public institutions for research-and-development spending in the humanities in the 2016 fiscal year devoted more than 5 percent of their overall R&D spending to the humanities, while 18 of the top 50 private nonprofit institutions did. Median R&D spending on the humanities among the 388 academic research institutions that reported such spending that year was $224,000. The share of overall R&D spending in the humanities by colleges that was supported by the federal government was 12.6 percent. See accompanying article.

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Only two of the top 50 public institutions for research-and-development spending in the humanities in the 2016 fiscal year devoted more than 5 percent of their overall R&D spending to the humanities, while 18 of the top 50 private nonprofit institutions did. Median R&D spending on the humanities among the 388 academic research institutions that reported such spending that year was $224,000. The share of overall R&D spending in the humanities by colleges that was supported by the federal government was 12.6 percent. See accompanying article.


Return to the Almanac home page, or go to the Profession, Students, Finance, or States section. To purchase a copy of the Almanac in print or as a downloadable interactive PDF, visit the Chronicle Store. Help guide us to give you the data you need by taking our 10-minute online Almanac survey.


Public institutions

RankInstitutionHumanities R&D spendingPercentage that was federally financedHumanities as % of all R&D spending
1. U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor $23,526,000 0.2% 1.6%
2. Arizona State U. $12,542,000 16.0% 2.4%
3. U. of Wisconsin at Madison $11,006,000 4.5% 1.0%
4. Florida International U. $9,446,000 10.2% 5.5%
5. U. of California at Irvine $9,381,000 4.7% 2.7%
6. U. of Georgia $8,777,000 1.1% 2.1%
7. U. of Virginia $6,749,000 19.1% 1.7%
8. U. of Nebraska at Lincoln $6,125,000 6.3% 2.1%
9. U. of Central Florida $5,737,000 5.0% 2.4%
10. U. of California at Los Angeles $5,344,000 0.6% 0.5%
11. U. of Mississippi $5,257,000 0.0% 4.3%
12. U. of Illinois at Chicago $4,924,000 34.4% 1.5%
13. U. of South Florida $4,614,000 3.6% 0.9%
14. North Carolina State U. $4,550,000 21.6% 0.9%
15. San Diego State U. $4,491,000 4.5% 5.0%
16. U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $4,409,000 8.2% 0.4%
17. U. of California at Berkeley $3,756,000 0.7% 0.5%
18. Texas Tech U. $3,643,000 0.1% 2.1%
19. Binghamton U. $3,606,000 0.0% 4.2%
20. Purdue U. at West Lafayette $3,422,000 9.5% 0.6%
21. U. of Iowa $3,405,000 10.0% 0.7%
22. U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign $3,355,000 31.7% 0.5%
23. Michigan State U. $3,216,000 20.4% 0.5%
24. Kent State U. $3,136,000 0.6% 9.0%
25. Iowa State U. $3,073,000 3.1% 0.9%
26. U. of Cincinnati $2,882,000 0.6% 0.7%
27. Indiana U. at Bloomington $2,662,000 4.1% 0.5%
28. U. of Louisiana at Lafayette $2,629,000 2.0% 3.3%
29. U. of Massachusetts at Amherst $2,395,000 9.6% 1.1%
30. U. of Washington $2,352,000 29.5% 0.2%
31. U. of California at Santa Cruz $2,278,000 26.8% 1.5%
32. U. of Florida $2,238,000 0.9% 0.3%
33. U. of Nevada at Las Vegas $2,183,000 0.0% 3.5%
34. U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities $2,125,000 3.3% 0.2%
35. Mississippi State U. $2,065,000 1.8% 0.9%
36. Florida State U. $2,058,000 2.8% 0.8%
37. U. of South Carolina at Columbia $1,985,000 8.4% 0.9%
38. U. of Maryland at College Park $1,981,000 25.5% 0.4%
39. U. of Texas at Dallas $1,934,000 9.4% 1.8%
40. Oklahoma State U. at Stillwater $1,914,000 7.4% 1.0%
41. Texas A&M U. at College Station $1,913,000 43.3% 0.2%
42. U. of Oklahoma at Norman $1,873,000 24.3% 0.7%
43. U. of Arizona $1,780,000 6.1% 0.3%
44. U. of California at San Diego $1,729,000 40.3% 0.2%
45. Virginia Commonwealth U. $1,672,000 79.2% 0.7%
46. Ohio State U. $1,624,000 33.0% 0.2%
47. U. of California at Davis $1,606,000 37.5% 0.2%
48. New Jersey Institute of Technology $1,512,000 1.3% 1.2%
49. Texas State U. $1,424,000 25.8% 2.6%
50. George Mason U. $1,420,000 23.2% 1.3%

Private nonprofit institutions

RankInstitutionHumanities
R&D spending
Percentage
federally
financed
Humanities
as % of all
R&D spending
1. U. of Notre Dame $13,844,000 2.3% 6.8%
2. New York U. $10,861,000 1.5% 1.3%
3. Yale U. $10,771,000 71.2% 1.2%
4. Emory U. $7,952,000 6.0% 1.3%
5. California Institute of Technology $6,005,000 49.2% 1.6%
6. Georgetown U. $5,786,000 1.0% 3.1%
7. Princeton U. $5,697,000 3.2% 1.9%
8. Johns Hopkins U. $5,621,000 81.1% 0.2%
9. Harvard U. $5,103,000 3.9% 0.5%
10. Columbia U. $4,721,000 16.0% 0.6%
11. Carnegie Mellon U. $4,286,000 0.0% 1.3%
12. Vanderbilt U. $4,243,000 3.0% 0.7%
13. U. of Chicago $4,166,000 9.2% 1.0%
14. U. of Pennsylvania $3,903,000 12.3% 0.3%
15. Fordham U. $3,900,000 0.0% 15.4%
16. Bryn Mawr College $3,779,000 24.0% 34.8%
17. Dartmouth College $3,763,000 0.1% 1.6%
18. Northwestern U. $3,166,000 9.7% 0.4%
19. Baylor U. $2,845,000 1.1% 10.6%
20. Syracuse U. $2,809,000 1.3% 3.3%
21. Brigham Young U. $2,688,000 89.2% 6.4%
22. Boston U. $2,651,000 10.1% 0.7%
23. Northeastern U. $2,511,000 49.5% 1.9%
24. Cornell U. $2,437,000 5.5% 0.3%
25. George Washington U. $2,168,000 30.3% 0.9%
26. U. of Southern California $1,903,000 4.3% 0.3%
27. Carleton College $1,719,000 3.7% 26.9%
28. Duke U. $1,395,000 0.1% 0.1%
29. Rice U. $1,290,000 6.5% 0.8%
30. Nova Southeastern U. $1,282,000 31.8% 6.6%
31. Tufts U. $1,155,000 2.5% 0.6%
32. Grinnell College $1,121,000 0.0% 26.8%
33. Azusa Pacific U. $921,000 0.0% 10.4%
34. Fairfield U. $871,000 0.0% 14.1%
35. Amherst College $867,000 0.0% 20.4%
36. Valparaiso U. $846,000 0.0% 27.8%
37. Loyola Marymount U. $790,000 0.0% 10.5%
38. Williams College $775,000 0.0% 13.5%
39. Tulane U. $746,000 0.0% 0.5%
40. Fisk U. $744,000 0.0% 7.0%
41. Saint Louis U. $697,000 11.6% 1.7%
42. Marquette U. $668,000 0.3% 2.4%
43. Villanova U. $646,000 0.0% 4.3%
44. Spelman College $638,000 0.0% 33.1%
45. Massachusetts Institute of Technology $595,000 17.8% 0.1%
46. Stanford U.* $537,000 29.1% 0.1%
47. St. Bonaventure U. $526,000 0.0% 72.0%
48. Boston College $513,000 0.0% 0.9%
49. Colgate U. $509,000 0.0% 15.8%
50. Dickinson College $494,000 0.0% 0.2%

* Stanford’s figure reflects sponsored research only. If institutional support were included, Stanford reports, the amount would be at least 10 times higher.

Note: For the purposes of this survey, humanities comprises English language and literature, and letters; foreign languages and literatures; history, including history and philosophy of science and technology; humanities, general; liberal arts and sciences (as a general subject of study); philosophy and religious studies; and theology and religious vocations. Figures include research-and-development spending supported by federal, state, and local governments; institutional resources; business; nonprofit organizations; and all other sources. Survey takers’ varying interpretations of when to report portions of faculty salaries as research-and-development spending may account for some of the differences among institutional rankings. Brown University asked to be dropped from the list because it believed its data had been reported incorrectly. The overall R&D spending for the Johns Hopkins University that was used to calculate the percentage of all such spending devoted to the humanities includes spending at the Applied Physics Laboratory, an affiliated independent nonprofit research center. The data are drawn from a survey of 902 academic institutions that spent at least $150,000 on research in the 2016 fiscal year. More data can be found here. Questions or comments on the Almanac should be sent to the Almanac editor.

Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Higher Education Research and Development Survey; Chronicle analysis

Correction (4/16/2019, 12:30 p.m.): The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which did not originally appear among the top 50 for public institutions, now ranks as No. 22 in that sector, and the list has been reranked. A university official said the institution had made a transcription error in reporting its humanities research-and-development spending to the National Science Foundation for the 2016 fiscal year and as a result had greatly underreported its spending. The corrected figures it submitted are now included in the list.

A version of this article appeared in the August 24, 2018, issue.
Read other items in Finance: Almanac 2018.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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