UC San Diego and UC Newsroom,
Five UC campuses ranked among the top 25 universities for research and development expenditures, according to figures released by the National Science Foundation.
As it has for several years, UC San Diego ranked fifth among top U.S. universities for research and development expenditures, with $1.076 billion in expenditures for fiscal year 2013, according to the NSF. That’s a slight increase over the 2012 expenditures of $1.074 billion and leads the University of California system.
UC San Diego Vice Chancellor for Research Sandra A. Brown noted that her campus consistently ranks among the top 10 research universities in R&D expenditures. The NSF R&D-expenditure rankings show useful trends over time, she said, and the extramural funding is a key leading indicator of the impact of the campus’ research enterprise.
“The university continues to attract these significant investments through the combined efforts of our faculty, staff and researchers,” Brown said. “UC San Diego is also among the national leaders in the life sciences, which account for more than half of all R&D at universities and colleges.”
The NSF numbers typically lag a year or more. According to the foundation, U.S. university expenditures for R&D in all fields totaled more than $67 billion in fiscal year 2013 and was more than $65 billion in 2012.