Higher-education institutions spent nearly $68.7 billion on research and development in the 2015 fiscal year, with the 40 highest-spending institutions accounting for half of that outlay. Among those 40, New York University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Harvard University saw the greatest one-year growth in R&D spending.
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| 1. | Johns Hopkins U. * | $2,305,679 | $2,242,478 | 2.8% |
| 2. | U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor | $1,369,278 | $1,349,262 | 1.5% |
| 3. | U. of Washington | $1,180,563 | $1,176,340 | 0.4% |
| 4. | U. of California at San Francisco | $1,126,620 | $1,084,031 | 3.9% |
| 5. | U. of California at San Diego | $1,101,466 | $1,067,388 | 3.2% |
| 6. | U. of Wisconsin at Madison | $1,069,077 | $1,108,564 | -3.6% |
| 7. | Duke U. | $1,036,698 | $1,036,813 | 0.0% |
| 8. | Stanford U. | $1,022,551 | $959,247 | 6.6% |
| 9. | U. of California at Los Angeles | $1,021,227 | $948,197 | 7.7% |
| 10. | Harvard U. | $1,013,753 | $933,975 | 8.5% |
| 11. | U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | $966,781 | $989,766 | -2.3% |
| 12. | Cornell U. | $954,412 | $883,292 | 8.1% |
| 13. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $930,719 | $908,017 | 2.5% |
| 14. | U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities | $880,618 | $876,870 | 0.4% |
| 15. | Columbia U. | $868,159 | $890,642 | -2.5% |
| 16. | Texas A&M U. at College Station and Health Science Center | $866,678 | $854,214 | 1.5% |
| 17. | U. of Pennsylvania | $864,068 | $828,350 | 4.3% |
| 18. | U. of Pittsburgh main campus | $861,205 | $856,806 | 0.5% |
| 19. | U. of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center | $833,406 | $794,980 | 4.8% |
| 20. | Ohio State U. | $817,881 | $815,075 | 0.3% |
| 21. | Yale U. | $803,004 | $772,840 | 3.9% |
| 22. | Pennsylvania State U. at University Park and Milton S. Hershey Medical Center | $791,031 | $800,773 | -1.2% |
| 23. | U. of California at Berkeley | $788,505 | $744,343 | 5.9% |
| 24. | Georgia Institute of Technology | $765,370 | $725,550 | 5.5% |
| 25. | U. of Florida | $739,522 | $708,526 | 4.4% |
| 26. | U. of California at Davis | $721,077 | $711,721 | 1.3% |
| 27. | Washington U. in St. Louis | $694,069 | $664,752 | 4.4% |
| 28. | U. of Southern California | $691,031 | $687,222 | 0.6% |
| 29. | Northwestern U. | $656,167 | $645,333 | 1.7% |
| 30. | U. of Texas at Austin | $650,608 | $585,251 | 11.2% |
| 31. | Vanderbilt U. | $647,816 | $683,890 | -5.3% |
| 32. | U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $639,817 | $621,733 | 2.9% |
| 33. | Rutgers U. at New Brunswick | $628,613 | $644,116 | -2.4% |
| 34. | U. of Arizona | $606,219 | $588,088 | 3.1% |
| 35. | New York U. | $602,041 | $523,623 | 15.0% |
| 36. | Emory U. | $585,210 | $558,600 | 4.8% |
| 37. | Purdue U. at West Lafayette | $558,611 | $564,923 | -1.1% |
| 38. | Michigan State U. | $558,248 | $526,906 | 5.9% |
| 39. | Baylor College of Medicine | $520,220 | $496,314 | 4.8% |
| 40. | U. of Utah | $518,928 | $486,140 | 6.7% |
| | 40 leading institutions | $34,256,946 | $33,344,951 | 2.7% |
| | All institutions | $68,667,801 | $67,199,635 | 2.2% |
* The Johns Hopkins University includes the Applied Physics Laboratory, which had $1,327,845,000 in total research-and-development expenditures in the 2015 fiscal year. The laboratory is an independent nonprofit research center that is affiliated with Johns Hopkins.
Note: Figures include research-and-development spending supported by federal, state, and local governments; institutional resources; business; nonprofit organizations; and all other sources. Figures are in current dollars. Data are based on a survey of 906 institutions in the United States and outlying territories that granted bachelor’s degrees or higher in any field and that did at least $150,000 of separately budgeted research and development in the 2015 fiscal year. The survey response rate was 97 percent. More data are at ncsesdata.nsf.gov/herd.
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Higher Education Research and Development Survey
