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News Release 15-042

Federally funded R&D center spending declined, latest figures say

Spending has fallen since one-time federal infusion of funds in fiscal year 2009

photo of the Capitol dome in Wahsington DC

R&D center funding has declined since 2010, when a stimulus bill provided an extra $1 billion.


April 21, 2015

This material is available primarily for archival purposes. Telephone numbers or other contact information may be out of date; please see current contact information at media contacts.

The majority of the nation's Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) reported spending less on research and development (R&D) in fiscal year (FY) 2013 than they had the previous year, according to a new InfoBrief from the National Science Foundation's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES).

The report details that the 40 FFRDCs spent $16.9 billion on R&D in FY 2013. Of those, 24 reported declines from FY 2012, and 17 reported two straight years of decreased spending.

Federal funding for the centers has been declining since a high of $18 billion in total spending was reported in FY 2010. That peak corresponded with the one-time American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which accounted for more than $1 billion of federal R&D expenditures to FFRDCs in FY 2010. In contrast, ARRA-funded expenditures to all FFRDCs combined amounted to $170 million in FY 2013, or 1 percent of federal R&D expenditures.

Basic research accounted for 24.8 percent of total FFRDC research and development expenditures in fiscal year 2013, a significant drop from the reported 35.2-percent share for the previous year. A major contributor to that decrease was a re-evaluation of the reported distribution of activities by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Five of the 40 laboratories--Los Alamos, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore and the NASA-sponsored Jet Propulsion Laboratory--account for half of the total reported R&D spending.

FFRDCs are privately operated organizations that the government funds exclusively or substantially. Since 2001, federal funding accounted for over 96 percent of their total R&D spending.

See more from this report: Majority of Federally Funded R&D Centers Report Declines in R&D Spending in FY 2013.

For more information and statistical products, please visit NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

-NSF-

Media Contacts
Rob Margetta, NSF, (703) 292-8070, email: rmargett@nsf.gov

Program Contacts
Ronda Britt, NSF, (703) 292-7765, email: rbritt@nsf.gov

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