The top 100 colleges and universities that spent on R&D in 2020

Though total research and development spending at higher education institutions grew more slowly than in any period since 2015 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, spending still increased by $2.7 billion in fiscal year 2020.

Of the $86.4 billion total noted in the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey, nearly half went toward health sciences and biomedical sciences, far outpacing most other initiatives. The total was triple what was spent on engineering, for example.

Far and away the biggest recipient and spender of R&D funds was Johns Hopkins University, which had more than $3.1 billion in expenditures, including its Applied Physics Lab ($1.9 billion). Twenty other institutions spent more than $1 billion, including these others in the top five: the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor ($1.67B), the University of California at San Francisco ($1.65B), the University of Pennsylvania ($1.58B) and the University of Washington at Seattle ($1.46B).

One institution that saw a big boost to its R&D bottom line was the University of Arizona, which spent $27 million more in FY 2020 than in 2019 to move into No. 35 overall. It also maintained its hold on the top spot in expenditures related to astronomy and astrophysics and cracked the top 50 in engineering.

“The latest HERD data demonstrate the robustness and continual growth of our research enterprise, despite challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic that took hold in early 2020,” said Elizabeth Cantwell, senior vice president for research and innovation. “At the heart of this success are our faculty and researchers, whose creativity and determination drive discovery and innovation, creating positive real-world impacts and knowledge for a more resilient future.”

The University of Wisconsin-Madison came in at No. 8, increasing its overall total by more than $65 million from the previous fiscal year. Like many other research institutions, its team approach in addressing COVID-19-related needs has been a top priority, with 80 research grants going toward helping in the global crisis. “I’m especially proud that our campus research community provides a backbone to the Wisconsin Idea in areas such as timely and critical public health response,” said Steve Ackerman, vice chancellor for research and graduate education at UW. “We see this in the university’s research response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also in our efforts to ensure significant continuing advances in STEM, the arts, education and the social sciences.”

Most dollars enjoyed by colleges and universities and their researchers in FY 2020 came from the federal government, though institutional funding accounted for around one-quarter of the total. Businesses ($5.8B), nonprofits ($5.8B) and state government also were key contributors to the overall pool in helping back academic studies and surveys in higher ed.

Other areas that ranged among the highest expenditures included agricultural sciences ($3.4B), geosciences ($3.19B), electrical engineering ($2.9B), social sciences ($2.8B), computer and information sciences ($2.64B), and physics ($2.3B).

Here is the rest of the top 100 from the 915 colleges and universities that spent more than $150,000 in research and development in FY 2020:

6. University of California, San Diego, $1,403,735
7. University of California, Los Angeles, $1,392,941
8. University of Wisconsin-Madison, $1,363,931
9. Harvard University, $1,239,983
10. Stanford University, $1,203,950
11. Duke University, $1,196,638
12. Cornell University, $1,190,063
13. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, $1,159,725
14. Texas A&M University, College Station, $1,130,803
15. University of Pittsburgh, $1,105,532
16. University of Maryland, $1,103,062
17. Yale University, $1,094,135
18. University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, $1,051,297
19. Georgia Institute of Technology, $1,048,988
20. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, $1,042,382
21. Columbia University, $1,032,909
22. Pennsylvania State University, $991,923
23. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $987,968
24. Ohio State University, $968,260
25. New York University, $947,293
26. University of Florida, $942,223
27. University of Southern California, $941,198
28. Washington University, Saint Louis, $920,215
29. Northwestern University, $874,671
30. University of California, Berkeley, $840,000
31. Vanderbilt University, $824,803
32. University of California, Davis, $816,693
33. Emory University, $808,792
34. University of Texas, Austin, $797,199
35. University of Arizona, $760,975
36. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, $747,014
37. Indiana University, Bloomington, $728,554
38. Michigan State University, $713,197
39. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, $689,176
40. Rutgers University, $688,077
41. Purdue University, West Lafayette, $687,144
42. Baylor College of Medicine, $685,641
43. Arizona State University, $673,357
44. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, $652,002
45. University of Alabama, Birmingham, $618,226
46. University of Utah, $607,061
47. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, $595,939
48. Boston University, $583,267
49. Virginia Tech University, $556,341
50. University of Colorado, Denver, $554,643
51. North Carolina State University, $546,290
52. University of Iowa, $538,583
53. University of Cincinnati, $530,138
54. University of Colorado, Boulder, $525,674
55. University of California, Irvine, $490,597
56. University of Georgia, $482,786
57. University of Chicago, $458,891
58. California Institute of Technology, $449,651
59. Oregon Health and Science University, $446,890
60. Scripps Research Institute, $444,964
61. Case Western Reserve University, $439,778
62. SUNY-Buffalo, $422,038
63. University of Kentucky, 417,674
64. University of Illinois, Chicago, $412,147
65. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, $407,302
66. University of Rochester, $397,211
67. Princeton University, $396,502
68. Carnegie Mellon University, $386,996
69. University of Miami, $381,410
70. University of Kansas, $368,811
71. Iowa State University, $363,107
72. University of Oklahoma, Norman, $362,209
73. Rockefeller University, $356,217
74. SUNY Polytechnic Institute, $355,651
75. Florida State University, $350,430
76. Washington State University, $335,201
77. University of South Florida, $333,344
78. University of Missouri, Columbia, $332,180
79. Dartmouth College, $326,349
80. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences , $324,510
81. University of Nebraska, Lincoln $320,463
82. University of Tennessee, Knoxville $320,407
83. Utah State University $304,256
84. Temple University $299,707
85. Albert Einstein College of Medicine $288,654
86. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge $286,733
87. Virginia Commonwealth University, $283,874
88. Mississippi State University, $280,485
89. University of Connecticut, $280,131
90. University of Massachusetts, Medical School, $279,096
91. University of Hawaii, Manoa, $275,929
92. University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, $273,862
93. Medical University of South Carolina, $272,590
94. George Washington University, $270,369
95. Oregon State University, 268,385
96. Brown University, $266,127
97. Medical College of Wisconsin, $264,325
98. SUNY-Stony Brook, $263,470
99. Georgetown University, $258,659
100. Auburn University, $255,281