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Useful Stats: Industry's Share of Academic R&D 2000-2002, by State

August 30, 2004
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For many states, increasing industrial research and development (R&D) within the state's academic research institutions is a priority. Some state tech-based economic development agencies offer financial assistance, such as matching grants to foster greater university-industry research collaboration. Some offer tax credits to companies for research expenditures within the state higher education community.

In most cases, industrially supported R&D will be for advanced research that most likely is closer to commercialization or supports technologies already in production.

In 2002, the top states for total industrial R&D expenditures at public and private institutions of higher education were California, Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, New York, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, and Florida. Nearly all of these schools also are in the top 10 or so rankings for total academic R&D expenditures.

The states with the greatest share of their total 2002 academic R&D portfolio funded by industrial sources reveals a somewhat different list: Alaska ranks first with 18.62 percent, followed by: North Carolina (12.20%), Georgia (8.92%), Massachusetts (8.67%), Pennsylvania (8.30%), Idaho (8.00%), Vermont (7.95%), Nebraska (7.91%), Virginia (7.44%), and Iowa (7.30%).

While there is significant variation in which states hold the top ten spots for industrial share of academic R&D (five other states held spots on top ten list in 2001 or 2000 to those listed above), the U.S. average has steadily fallen each year. The industrial share of total US academic research was 7.25 percent in 2000, dropping to 6.82 percent in 2001 and registering only 6.02 percent of the total in 2002.

To aid states in seeing trends in their industrial R&D support at academic institutions, SSTI has prepared a table presenting data from the National Science Foundation annual surveys of academic R&D for the most recent three years for which data are available, 2000-2002: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/083004t.htm

Alaska