Adequate financial support for research and development (R&D) activities at universities and colleges in the United States is essential for enabling academic researchers to perform world-class research. This brief focuses on the main sources of financial support for academic R&D and the changes that have taken place over the last two…

This brief examines changes in research and development emphasis in the academic sector--which conducts roughly half of the nation's basic research--by analyzing shifts in the science and engineering field shares during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Both the shifting distribution of overall funds among science and engineering fields and the effects…