useful stats

Federal funding for S&E R&D grew by $7.2 billion from 2002 to 2016, reaching more than $31.6 billion. This represents a 29.4 percent increase during the period, or approximately 2.0 percent per year, according to an SSTI analysis of data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

In last week’s Digest, SSTI looked at several macro venture capital (VC) trends, this week’s Useful Stats article focuses on regional trends as well as provides downloadable VC stats by state by quarter from Q1 of 2016 to Q2 of 2018. The data includes median VC deal size, VC deals, and VC dollars invested.

Real personal income — a measure of purchasing power that connects income to costs — has grown within states at an average rate of 1.5 percent per person since 2012, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The average American’s experienced income growth, however, appears to vary wildly depending on location.

Last week, SSTI examined the geography of “America’s Seed Fund,” the SBIR/STTR awards, on a state-by-state basis. A look at how the more than 25,500 awards were distributed at the regional level over the five-year period from 2013 to 2017 yields additional insight. The metropolitan areas with the largest concentrations of SBIR/STTR awards include knowledge hubs with large universities and access to federal R&D, such as Boston, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C.

The SBIR/STTR program, which dubs itself as “America’s Seed Fund,” is one of the broadest forms of early-stage capital available to small technology companies. During the five-year period from 2013 to 2017, the 11 federal agencies participating in the SBIR/STTR program distributed 25,524 awards. Using charts, maps, and a downloadable spreadsheet, this Digest article looks at trends in SBIR/STTR awards by state over the period, including the companies with the most awards and states where SBIR/STTR awards outnumber VC deals.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published its 2017 estimates on state-level real gross domestic product (GDP). Per-capita gross product is a useful metric because it can show a state’s relative performance against its peers and over time. SSTI has prepared a spreadsheet showing 10 years of real per capita gross product by state, as well as an interactive map showing changes over the 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year periods. As more data becomes available, a future Digest issue will cover this topic at the metropolitan level. 

Across the nation, R&D at colleges and universities plays an important role in generating promising inventions, training our STEM talent pipeline, and supporting regional economic development. An SSTI analysis of National Science Foundation data finds that higher-education R&D (HERD) is a multi-billion dollar industry that directly employs nearly one million personnel on projects and grants in the United States. However, the locations of R&D projects and personnel differ greatly by state and region.

Across the country, companies reported nearly $300 billion in self-funded and self-performed domestic R&D in 2015, according to recent data from the National Science Foundation’s Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS), with nearly one-third of this total ($95.0 billion) coming from California. Businesses in Wyoming, Washington D.C., and Utah reported the greatest increase in self-funded and self-performed R&D from 2010 to 2015.

As explored in last week’s Digest, the presence of Eds and Meds institutions can positively influence the levels of human capital in a region, but the need to keep costs low can hinder their overall growth. SSTI’s analysis subsequently found that employment in Eds and Meds industries increased in every state from 2005 to 2015. This article looks at Eds and Meds employment for the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Mid-sized regions in the Northeast like Rochester, New York (4.4 percentage points), New Haven, Connecticut (2.9 percentage points), and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (2.3 percentage points) experienced the largest growth in per-capita employment in Eds and Meds industries between 2010 and 2015.

For decades, state and local economies have leaned heavily on their anchor institutions during times of economic uncertainty and transition. An analysis finds that total employment in “Eds and Meds” industries increased in every state from 2005 to 2015. This article breaks down the growth and geography of Eds and Meds employment at the state level, while next week’s issue of the Digest will explore this data by metropolitan area.