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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Public institutions
| Rank | Institution | Humanities R&D spending | Percentage that was federally financed | Humanities 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
| 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.
