Four of the 12 institutions that spent more than $1 billion on research and development in the 2017 fiscal year were in California. All but two of the top 40 institutions for R&D spending increased their level of spending from the 2016 to 2017 fiscal years. New York and Michigan State Universities saw the greatest one-year percentage increase, at 13.3 percent.
| 1. | Johns Hopkins U.* | $2,562,307 | $2,431,180 | 5.4% |
| 2. | U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor | $1,530,139 | $1,436,448 | 6.5% |
| 3. | U. of California at San Francisco | $1,409,398 | $1,294,261 | 8.9% |
| 4. | U. of Pennsylvania | $1,374,293 | $1,296,429 | 6.0% |
| 5. | U. of Washington | $1,348,220 | $1,277,679 | 5.5% |
| 6. | U. of Wisconsin at Madison | $1,193,413 | $1,157,680 | 3.1% |
| 7. | U. of California at San Diego | $1,133,454 | $1,087,117 | 4.3% |
| 8. | Duke U. | $1,126,924 | $1,055,778 | 6.7% |
| 9. | Harvard U. | $1,123,160 | $1,077,253 | 4.3% |
| 10. | Stanford U. | $1,109,708 | $1,066,269 | 4.1% |
| 11. | U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | $1,102,063 | $1,045,338 | 5.4% |
| 12. | U. of California at Los Angeles | $1,076,917 | $1,037,528 | 3.8% |
| 13. | Cornell U. | $984,478 | $974,199 | 1.1% |
| 14. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $952,017 | $946,159 | 0.6% |
| 15. | Yale U. | $951,084 | $881,765 | 7.9% |
| 16. | U. of Pittsburgh main campus | $939,706 | $889,793 | 5.6% |
| 17. | U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities | $921,681 | $910,181 | 1.3% |
| 18. | New York U. | $917,744 | $809,739 | 13.3% |
| 19. | Texas A&M U. at College Station and Health Science Center | $905,474 | $892,718 | 1.4% |
| 20. | Columbia U. | $893,062 | $837,312 | 6.7% |
| 21. | U. of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center | $888,029 | $852,095 | 4.2% |
| 22. | Ohio State U. | $864,327 | $818,464 | 5.6% |
| 23. | Pennsylvania State U. at University Park and Hershey Medical Center | $854,815 | $825,561 | 3.5% |
| 24. | Georgia Institute of Technology | $804,301 | $790,706 | 1.7% |
| 25. | U. of Florida | $801,418 | $791,294 | 1.3% |
| 26. | U. of California at Berkeley | $770,822 | $774,255 | -0.4% |
| 27. | U. of Southern California | $764,322 | $702,866 | 8.7% |
| 28. | Washington U. in St. Louis | $754,462 | $741,115 | 1.8% |
| 29. | Northwestern U. | $751,809 | $713,491 | 5.4% |
| 30. | U. of California at Davis | $738,347 | $741,892 | -0.5% |
| 31. | Vanderbilt U. and Vanderbilt U. Medical Center | $712,036 | $640,842 | 11.1% |
| 32. | Michigan State U. | $694,917 | $613,369 | 13.3% |
| 33. | Rutgers U. at New Brunswick | $681,719 | $630,212 | 8.2% |
| 34. | Emory U. | $664,888 | $614,527 | 8.2% |
| 35. | U. of Texas at Austin | $652,187 | $621,692 | 4.9% |
| 36. | U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $642,084 | $625,180 | 2.7% |
| 37. | Purdue U. at West Lafayette | $622,814 | $606,302 | 2.7% |
| 38. | U. of Arizona | $622,200 | $604,464 | 2.9% |
| 39. | Baylor College of Medicine | $604,952 | $572,527 | 5.7% |
| 40. | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai | $575,448 | $540,296 | 6.5% |
| | 40 leading institutions | $38,021,139 | $36,225,976 | 5.0% |
| | All institutions | $75,174,941 | $71,795,275 | 4.7% |
* The Johns Hopkins University includes the Applied Physics Laboratory, which had $1,472,103,000 in total research-and-development expenditures in the 2017 fiscal year and $1,403,733,000 in the 2016 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 903 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 2017 fiscal year. Ranked institutions are geographically separate campuses headed by a campus-level president or chancellor. More data can ordinarily be found here (though they are currently unavailable because of the government shutdown). Questions or comments on the Chronicle List should be sent to Ruth Hammond.
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data