Federal Obligations for R&D to Private Nonprofit Institutions Totaled $8.3 Billion in FY 2019

In FY 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) combined account for over 85% of all federal R&D obligations to nonprofit institutions (figure 2). HHS, which includes the National Institutes of Health, provided the largest share (66%) of all federal obligation for R&D to nonprofits with $5.5 billion, followed by DOD with 20% ($1.6 billion). Obligations from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (PCORTF), managed by the Department of the Treasury,^{​PCORTF was established in 2010 as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and reauthorized through the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020. PCORTF is funded by fees on issuers of health insurance policies and plan sponsors of applicable self-insured health plans and by funds dedicated to PCORI that were also established under the same legislation as PCORTF.} accounted for nearly 7% ($578 million) of all federal obligations to nonprofits. These were followed by NSF and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, with each accounting for 2%, while the Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, and Department of Education each contributed about 1%.

In FY 2019, 25 nonprofit institutions accounted for 60% of all federal R&D obligations to the nonprofit sector (table 1). Most of these nonprofit institutions are engaged in medical and biological sciences. Thus, not only are the majority of federal obligations for R&D to nonprofit institutions highly concentrated in terms of the research focus (i.e., medical and biological), but they are also highly centralized in that a majority of funding goes to a relatively small number of recipients. Since approximately 21 of these 25 institutions perform some amount of research in medical and biological science,^{​Review of each of the organizations indicate that the SRI International, Research Triangle Institute, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, Inc., and the Logistics Management Institute do not conduct research activities in the biological and medical sciences.} it is not surprising that HHS was the primary funder to these nonprofit institutions at $3.3 billion. However, it is interesting to note that DOD was the second-largest funder with $1.0 billion in R&D obligations to these same 25 organizations.

In FY 2019, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) was the single largest recipient of federal funds for R&D with $578 million; it was closely followed by the Massachusetts General Hospital with $516 million and by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine with $368 million in federal R&D obligations (figure 3). These three institutions alone constitute 18% of all federal R&D obligations to nonprofits in FY 2019. However, these three institutions have not always been ranked first, second, and third in receipts from federal agencies. For example, in FY 2017 and FY 2018, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine ranked 27th ($48 million) and 7th ($223 million), respectively. Similarly, while PCORI has ranked as the single largest recipient since FY 2017, it had ranked 13th ($115 million) and 7th ($152 million) in FY 2016 and FY 2015, respectively.

The survey population is derived from the federal agencies identified in the Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development as providing R&D and R&D plant obligations to academic or nonprofit organizations. The Federal S&E Support Survey provides information on federal agency obligations for R&D to individually identified nonprofit institutions, an advantage that is not available from other statistical surveys. For the FY 2019 survey, data were obtained from the 20 agencies (12 federal departments, and 8 independent agencies) that made S&E obligations to academic and nonprofit institutions in FY 2019, as reported to the Federal S&E Support Survey. The survey collects federal S&E support data by funding agency, individually named institution, type of activity, type of institution, and geographic location. For individually named nonprofit institutions, agencies report obligations for R&D and R&D plant only; no other data on S&E support are collected.

The full set of data tables on the FY 2019 Federal S&E Support Survey is available at https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvyfedsupport/. Data for the survey are available in NCSES’s interactive data tool (https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/ids/fss). For more information, please contact the author.

Pece C; National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). 2021. Federal Obligations for R&D to Private Nonprofit Institutions Totaled $8.3 Billion in FY 2019. NSF 22-301. Alexandria, VA: National Science Foundation. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22301.

Christopher Pece
Survey Manager
Research and Development Statistics Program, NCSES
Tel: (703) 292-7788
E-mail: cpece@nsf.gov

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