Economic and Scientific Effects of Federal Investment in Chemical Sciences Research

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In 2009 the U.S. Federal government provided nearly $33 billion in funding for university performed research and development (R&D), accounting for about 60 percent of the total funding for university R&D in that year. This project examines the impact of this federal funding for university R&D in chemistry on a range of significant economic and scientific outcomes, including the production of new scientific knowledge and how this knowledge in turn affects local economies. The project uses a two-track research strategy to shed light on the impacts of federal funding on scientific productivity and local economic development. In the first track, we analyze historical data on research funding at the 150 most-funded institutions using a dynamic panel estimation framework. We measure scientific outcomes via the number of doctoral students trained, the quantity of publications produced, the scholarly impact of these publications as reflected in the number of citations they receive, and the number of patents awarded; economic outcomes are measured using average wage levels in the community surrounding each institution. The significant policy-induced variations in research funding over the last two decades are exploited as a natural experiment to obtain causal estimates of the marginal impact of increased funding on these different measures of impact.In the second track, survey data will be collected from investigators in chemistry departments at the institutions being studied to gain insight about the ways in which institutional characteristics, attitudes and behaviors mediate the effects of federal funding. Combining this survey data from research chemists with the overall analysis of spending impact from the first track will yield insights specific to the effects of chemical-science investments that can then be compared to the impacts of non-chemistry spending. Broader Impacts:The project will develop quantitative measures of the impact of federal funding on scientific and economic outcomes and connect them to different institutional characteristics at the universities studied. Estimates of these impacts can be used to identify specific institutional characteristics that either increase or reduce the impact of additional funding, and thereby evaluate the most (and least) productive areas for incremental funding. For federal officials involved in setting science policy and allocating scarce taxpayer funds, these estimates will help support choices that maximize the scientific impact of their investments. For university officials administering these research institutions, these estimates will allow them to better understand how institutional policies affect desired institutional outcomes and consequently support their ability to make better choices about institutional priorities.