Useful Stats

Higher education R&D expenditures (HERD) grew by 38.9 percent from 2008 to 2017, an increase of more than $21 billion, according to an SSTI analysis of recently released data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. From 2016 to 2017, HERD grew by $3.8 billion, the largest year-over-year increase since 2010-2011. Higher education R&D expenditures grew the fastest in Connecticut (66.2 percent), Massachusetts (63.9 percent), and Wyoming (63.0 percent) over the 10-year period, while New York ($2.3 billion increase), California ($2.0 billion), and Massachusetts ($1.6 billion) saw the largest absolute gains during this time.

From 2016 to 2017, higher education R&D expenditures grew by $3.8 billion, the most in year-over-year new funding since 2010-2011. Of the new funds, 43.1 percent came from federal sources, 27.2 percent came from institutional funds, and 17.0 percent came from other sources, like nonprofit organizations. The remainder (12.7 percent) came from businesses, and state and local governments.

Since 2011, more than half of the nation's new investment in business research and development has come from California companies, and more than three-quarters has come from the top five states, according to an SSTI analysis of recently released NSF data. For the second time this year, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) has updated the data for the Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS),  a primary source of information on domestic and global business research and development expenditures. In 2016, companies reported nearly $317.7 billion in self-funded and self-performed domestic R&D, a $20 billion (7.0 percent) increase from the previous year, according to the updated data. This type of business R&D represented 4.0 percent of the gross state product in California and Washington in 2016, the most of any states.

Across the country, there are nearly 6.9 million scientists and engineers, representing 4.8 percent of the nation’s workforce. There are 20 states having at least 100,000 workers in these occupations. Scientists and engineers are concentrated around the nation’s capital, making up the largest share of the workforce in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. From 2003 to 2017, the number of scientists and engineers grew the fastest in Arkansas, North Dakota, and Utah. With an interactive map and downloadable spreadsheet, this article breaks down the changes in the science and engineering workforce across the United States over the last 15 years.

NVCA and PitchBook released Venture Monitor 3Q 2018 this week. The highlight data point in the report is that total U.S. venture capital investment in 2018 is on pace to break $100 billion for the year — and, in fact, to break $110 billion. At the same time, deal volume is on pace to be at the lowest level since 2012, with just 6,583 deals reported to date in 2018. With so much of the macro VC trends driven by mega deals to the latest-stage companies, we dug into the data at the earliest stages of equity investment: accelerators/incubators, angel, and seed financings.

Companies employing more than 5,000 people represent nearly two-thirds (63.9 percent) of all business R&D in the United States, according to an analysis of NSF’s Business Research, Development, and Innovation Survey (BRDIS). With the recent release of more detailed numbers and to expand on a Useful Stats report from earlier this year, this analysis focuses on business R&D by company size. Small and mid-sized companies made up the highest share of business R&D in Alaska, New Mexico and Louisiana. In Delaware, Michigan and Oregon, large companies made up the highest share of business R&D.

Federal funding for S&E R&D grew by $7.2 billion from 2002 to 2016, reaching more than $31.6 billion. This represents a 29.4 percent increase during the period, or approximately 2.0 percent per year, according to an SSTI analysis of data from the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. Among states, California ($4.3 billion), New York ($2.4 billion), and Maryland ($2.3 billion) received the most in federal funds for S&E R&D in 2016, while Baltimore ($2.0 billion), New York City ($1.7 billion), and Boston ($1.3 billion) led among metropolitan areas.

S&E R&D accounts for roughly 98.5 percent of all federal funds for R&D, and roughly 93.2 percent of all R&D at colleges and universities. The fields where the federal government invests the most at colleges and universities are the life sciences (comprised of agricultural, health, biological and biomedical sciences).

In last week’s Digest, SSTI looked at several macro venture capital (VC) trends, this week’s Useful Stats article focuses on regional trends as well as provides downloadable VC stats by state by quarter from Q1 of 2016 to Q2 of 2018. The data includes median VC deal size, VC deals, and VC dollars invested.

Real personal income — a measure of purchasing power that connects income to costs — has grown within states at an average rate of 1.5 percent per person since 2012, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The average American’s experienced income growth, however, appears to vary wildly depending on location. A person’s state could mean experiencing as little as a 0.0 percent or as much as a 2.8 percent annual increase, while living in a metro area could mean losing 1.0 percent in annual income growth or gaining 3.4 percent relative to in-state peers living in non-metro areas. In terms of 2016 dollars, living in an average state’s metro area means an additional $4,169 in real person income.

The above figure displays these average year-over-year growth rates in real per capita income from 2012-2016. (The picklist at the top left controls the data displayed for the states, while options on the top right controls the data displayed for the top 100 metros.)

Last week, SSTI examined the geography of “America’s Seed Fund,” the SBIR/STTR awards, on a state-by-state basis. A look at how the more than 25,500 awards were distributed at the regional level over the five-year period from 2013 to 2017 yields additional insight. The metropolitan areas with the largest concentrations of SBIR/STTR awards include knowledge hubs with large universities and access to federal R&D, such as Boston, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. Smaller regions with a large federal R&D presence, like Huntsville, Alabama, Santa Maria, California and Dayton, Ohio also rank highly.

Compared to venture capital, the geography of SBIR/STTR deals is considerably less concentrated. Overall, less than half (44.2 percent) of the SBIR/STTR award dollars distributed between 2013 and 2017 went to the top 10 metropolitan areas. The top 10 metropolitan areas represent approximately 80 percent of all venture capital dollars, according to CityLab.

The SBIR/STTR program, which dubs itself as “America’s Seed Fund,” is one of the broadest forms of early-stage capital available to small technology companies. During the five-year period from 2013 to 2017, the 11 federal agencies participating in the SBIR/STTR program distributed 25,524 awards. Using charts, maps, and a downloadable spreadsheet, this Digest article looks at trends in SBIR/STTR awards by state over the period, including the companies with the most awards and states where SBIR/STTR awards outnumber VC deals. A future article will look at awards by metropolitan area.

Federal agencies with extramural R&D budgets exceeding $100 million are required to allocate 3.2 percent of their R&D budgets to the SBIR/STTR program. The U.S. Small Business Administration, which oversees the SBIR/STTR program, releases data on individual awards across agencies. SSTI has collected this data and compiled it by state. The interactive graphic below displays the data by award type (SBIR/STTR), phase, agency, and year.  

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published its 2017 estimates on state-level real gross domestic product (GDP). Per-capita gross product is a useful metric because it can show a state’s relative performance against its peers and over time. SSTI has prepared a spreadsheet showing 10 years of real per capita gross product by state, as well as an interactive map showing changes over the 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year periods. As more data becomes available, a future Digest issue will cover this topic at the metropolitan level. 

At nearly $160,000 per person, real per capita gross product was highest, by far, in Washington D.C. in 2017. Coastal states like Massachusetts ($66,500 per person), New York ($65,220), Delaware ($63,955), and Connecticut ($62,633), as well as energy-intensive states like North Dakota ($64,911), Alaska ($63,610), and Wyoming ($61,091), ranked highly for real per capita gross product in 2017.

Across the nation, R&D at colleges and universities plays an important role in generating promising inventions, training our STEM talent pipeline, and supporting regional economic development. An SSTI analysis of National Science Foundation data finds that higher-education R&D (HERD) is a multi-billion dollar industry that directly employs nearly one million personnel on projects and grants in the United States. However, the locations of R&D projects and personnel differ greatly by state and region.