US piles on the federal subsidies for R&D

Federal agencies in the US provided $109.7 billion for research and development (R&D) activities in 2004, says this press release from the National Science Foundation. The latest Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development describes a "decade-long average increase of 4.7 percent each year".

 

The numbers are staggering. "The survey also shows that research accounted for 48.6 percent of total federal R&D money in 2004, with 42.5 percent of those research dollars going to universities and colleges."

 

The Department of Health and Human Services was the biggest supporter of research, while the Department of Defense (DoD) accounting for most of the funding of development.

 

Business in the US does its bit. Another item details the extent of business spending on R&D. "Companies spent $208 billion in current-year dollars on research and development (R&D) performed in the United States during 2004 compared with $201 billion in 2003."

 

Does this spending deliver the goods? "In October 2006, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released calculations that showed that R&D accounted for a substantial share of the resurgence in U.S. economic growth in recent years." Indeed, they reckon that "R&D contributed 6.5 percent of economic growth between 1995 and 2002".