Center for Economic Growth

Academic R&D performers account for about 15 percent of the nation’s R&D activities. University R&D expenditures can be “a valuable basis for future economic development,” the National Science Board has noted.

For example, over the last five years, the Albany-Troy-Schenectady and Harrisburg-Carlisle MSAs have emerged as the second and fourth biggest gainers in manufacturing jobs throughout the Northeast, respectively. During that time, they’ve together created 5,147 manufacturing jobs – almost the size of the Elmira MSA’s manufacturing sector. The biggest university R&D spenders for these two metros – the SUNY Polytechnic Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s University Park and Hershey Medical Center – were nation’s sixth and fifth top spenders for engineering R&D in 2015, respectively.

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