NSF InfoBrief: Federal Agencies Obligated $29B to Academic Institutions for S&E Activities in FY13

In FY13, federal agencies obligated $29 billion to 995 academic institutions for science and engineering (S&E) activities, according to a recent National Science Foundation (NSF) InfoBrief. The FY13 federal obligation represented a 6 percent decrease in current dollars from the $31 billion that federal agencies obligated to 1,073 academic institutions in FY12 – the third year in a row of declining S&E funding to academic institutions. In FY13, research and development (R&D) obligation accounted for 89 percent of total academic S&E obligations annually from FY 2011-13. Other S&E categories supported by federal agencies include R&D plant; facilities and equipment for instruction in S&E; fellowships, traineeships, and training grants; general support for S&E; and, other S&E activities. Collectively, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NSF, and the Department of Defense (DOD) provided 87% of all federally funded academic S&E obligations in FY13. Almost 40 percent of FY13 federal obligations were awarded to 20 universities – 19 of those were also ranked among the top 20 in FY12.

The InfoBrief also reports statistics on federal obligations to independent nonprofit institutions for two of the six S&E categories: R&D and R&D plant. In FY13, federal agencies obligated $6.6 billion to 1,068 nonprofit institutions, a decrease of 2% from the $6.8 billion reported in FY 2012 (current dollars). In FY13, the 10 leading nonprofit institutions in terms of federal S&E funds received 36% of the total funding to all nonprofits – five of those recipients were hospitals or medical research institutes. Read the InfoBrief…