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Universities With the Highest Research-and-Development Spending Financed by the National Science Foundation, FY 2016

Almanac 2018 August 19, 2018

The top 40 institutions spent more than half of what all institutions spent on research and development with support from the National Science Foundation in the 2016 fiscal year. The field with the highest spending was engineering, followed by physical sciences. The top institution in this ranking, though, devoted the largest share of its spending to computer and information sciences, and the second on the list devoted its largest share to geosciences, atmospheric sciences, and ocean sciences.


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The top 40 institutions spent more than half of what all institutions spent on research and development with support from the National Science Foundation in the 2016 fiscal year. The field with the highest spending was engineering, followed by physical sciences. The top institution in this ranking, though, devoted the largest share of its spending to computer and information sciences, and the second on the list devoted its largest share to geosciences, atmospheric sciences, and ocean sciences.


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.


Click on the plus sign in the first column to see figures from final columns.

All dollar figures are represented in thousands.

RankInstitutionAll NSF R&D expendituresComputer and information sciencesGeosciences, atmospheric sciences, and ocean sciencesLife sciencesMathematics and statisticsPhysical sciencesPsychologySocial sciencesOther sciencesEngineeringAll non-science-and-engineering fields
1. U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign $127,024 $55,802 $3,459 $9,222 $2,844 $18,663 $2,206 $1,925 $4 $28,932 $3,967
2. U. of Washington $113,679 $7,625 $32,948 $10,055 $3,018 $14,972 $674 $3,104 $0 $27,258 $14,025
3. Cornell U. $109,545 $8,841 $3,059 $24,699 $2,046 $40,198 $694 $2,419 $0 $25,926 $1,663
4. Texas A&M U. at College Station and Health Science Center $100,344 $3,326 $63,805 $4,515 $4,071 $6,013 $191 $816 $402 $14,486 $2,719
5. Columbia U. $97,190 $8,060 $44,805 $5,040 $2,090 $18,023 $516 $1,415 $0 $12,652 $4,589
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology $97,033 $15,167 $11,965 $7,092 $5,747 $18,292 $201 $1,273 $1,819 $34,350 $1,127
7. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution $92,565 $0 $58,627 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $33,938 $0
8. California Institute of Technology $89,490 $0 $9,942 $2,669 $4,399 $66,933 $46 $0 $0 $4,519 $982
9. U. of Wisconsin at Madison $89,389 $12,111 $12,694 $13,863 $3,951 $19,932 $1,049 $1,797 $1,679 $14,384 $7,929
10. U. of California at San Diego $84,550 $9,818 $24,585 $5,917 $2,567 $10,743 $5,166 $1,348 $142 $23,139 $1,125
11. Stanford U. $83,761 $4,139 $4,116 $5,295 $4,170 $17,259 $1,112 $3,142 $0 $22,642 $21,886
12. U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor $83,587 $660 $2,694 $8,635 $4,739 $11,559 $1,831 $11,139 $0 $38,898 $3,432
13. U. of Colorado at Boulder $79,795 $4,370 $21,296 $3,285 $1,242 $15,574 $1,239 $2,871 $9,459 $17,119 $3,340
14. U. of Texas at Austin $78,961 $27,080 $7,487 $6,380 $3,071 $6,155 $915 $2,453 $364 $23,267 $1,789
15. U. of California at Berkeley $75,232 $157 $2,932 $9,462 $4,816 $15,415 $1,182 $1,756 $8,273 $28,647 $2,592
16. U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities $73,547 $8,105 $6,246 $11,644 $5,268 $6,416 $572 $6,700 $0 $26,161 $2,435
17. Carnegie Mellon U. $73,066 $39,176 $515 $986 $3,914 $3,565 $1,002 $2,014 $3,056 $18,838 $0
18. Michigan State U. $72,873 $4,354 $439 $15,292 $3,977 $30,818 $526 $1,582 $841 $6,804 $8,240
19. Georgia Institute of Technology $70,832 $11,529 $3,106 $2,179 $2,666 $11,484 $729 $1,544 $2,074 $34,959 $562
20. Pennsylvania State U. at University Park and Hershey Medical Center $67,271 $2,628 $10,741 $8,975 $2,876 $16,602 $1,837 $2,980 $0 $19,766 $866
21. Purdue U. at West Lafayette $65,203 $10,786 $1,699 $8,079 $3,579 $6,928 $721 $471 $0 $29,327 $3,613
22. U. of California at Los Angeles $63,344 $4,452 $6,638 $6,678 $4,533 $11,025 $513 $1,478 $7,100 $15,577 $5,350
23. Arizona State U. $58,610 $4,356 $5,381 $4,786 $2,258 $3,960 $867 $7,995 $5,098 $19,875 $4,034
24. Princeton U. $57,197 $5,896 $7,616 $3,956 $3,527 $22,177 $93 $775 $0 $13,157 $0
25. U. of Maryland at College Park $57,157 $8,937 $3,399 $9,436 $3,240 $13,955 $266 $1,522 $856 $13,254 $2,292
26. U. of Arizona $54,999 $3,111 $7,690 $19,829 $1,542 $8,243 $97 $2,138 $2,895 $8,453 $1,001
27. Harvard U. $54,074 $195 $4,016 $7,385 $2,300 $12,236 $826 $2,187 $4,230 $15,371 $5,328
28. Rutgers U. at New Brunswick $53,625 $5,791 $13,011 $3,085 $5,025 $13,880 $141 $1,622 $21 $9,526 $1,523
29. North Carolina State U. $53,595 $4,408 $3,481 $8,248 $6,005 $4,164 $533 $502 $74 $24,004 $2,176
30. Ohio State U. $53,077 $7,259 $3,288 $7,603 $5,208 $9,615 $584 $3,454 $1,338 $12,983 $1,745
31. Florida State U. $51,255 $2,021 $2,936 $3,459 $832 $24,393 $487 $195 $137 $16,083 $712
32. U. of Chicago $50,276 $12,099 $3,216 $4,338 $3,474 $20,155 $1,725 $1,183 $0 $2,467 $1,619
33. Northwestern U. $48,927 $1,191 $892 $2,024 $1,278 $10,622 $873 $3,224 $6,703 $17,163 $4,957
34. Oregon State U. $46,681 $2,881 $19,513 $6,617 $703 $1,304 $201 $789 $5,162 $9,325 $186
35. U. of California at Davis $45,289 $3,558 $4,873 $17,312 $2,847 $4,734 $118 $1,957 $0 $7,598 $2,292
36. U. of Florida $44,700 $3,297 $7,669 $8,969 $547 $7,834 $159 $1,049 $0 $12,434 $2,742
37. U. of California at Santa Barbara $44,450 $3,728 $7,782 $3,209 $948 $9,790 $611 $1,679 $0 $16,065 $638
38. U. of Southern California $42,954 $8,160 $9,530 $8,308 $744 $3,306 $396 $1,188 $28 $9,860 $1,434
39. U. of Pennsylvania $40,912 $6,700 $589 $4,172 $2,207 $11,736 $345 $992 $22 $8,558 $5,591
40. U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $39,362 $9,258 $4,148 $7,562 $1,918 $5,889 $675 $1,400 $69 $4,744 $3,699
Top 40 institutions $2,617,743 $303,186 $420,779 $277,009 $114,370 $523,841 $29,892 $80,819 $61,727 $683,282 $122,838
All 579 institutions $5,114,206 $590,084 $706,103 $728,589 $229,704 $979,998 $71,102 $145,351 $130,242 $1,270,147 $262,886

Note: The rankings cover 579 institutions that reported research-and-development expenditures financed by the National Science Foundation in the 2016 fiscal year. Institutions included in the ranking are geographically separate campuses headed by a campus-level president or chancellor or the equivalent. 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</small></p>

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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