U.S. research and development (R&D)  is an increasingly troubled enterprise. So conclude my colleagues Scott Andes and Mark Muro in a recent assessment of the quantity and composition of the country’s R&D investments.

Not only is the scale of the U.S. research effort insufficient, but its format is frequently sub-optimal as well. Too often federally financed basic research remains completely divorced from industry-led developmental work, to the detriment of the nation’s innovation outcomes. After all, with technology growing ever more complex, collaborative forms of R&D—where researchers from different sectors actively engage with a wider ecosystem of users, competitors, and developers of complementary technologies—promise to be the most productive.

One place to look for insight into the nation’s collaborative research scene is the National Science Foundation’s (NSF)  Higher Education R&D Survey, tracking the total value and source of all R&D expenditures routed through universities each year. In 2013, $67.2 billion worth of R&D was conducted at U.S. universities—$39.5 billion of that was funded by the federal government; $15.0 billion by the institutions themselves; and, coming in just below non-profit organizations and state and local governments, $3.5 billion by businesses. That’s just 5 percent of the total.

READ MORE