I think the real problem with this post will be presentation. I have an Excel spreadsheet that shows U.S. federal funding for reseach by sector, and I want to show the growth rates and doubling times. However, the time series for some sectors differs, for a variety of reasons. So, please be patient with me.
I will put the figures in the extended post below, as well as some analysis, and report the topline findings here. In a later post I will do the same for subcategories. I think it will look messy. The purpose is to see what choices are being made, so we can compare funding differences to outputs--the numbers of academic publications and patents in each field.
Mathematics and computer sciences have seen the greatest growth, with a CAGR of 10.54% and a doubling time of 6.92 years. Strangely, physical sciences (including astronomy, chemistry and physics) fared second worst, with a CAGR of 5.14% and a doubling time of 13.83 years. However, it did start with the second highest base total, if that's any justification... Slowest growth in federal research funding was experienced in social sciences, with a CAGR of 4.82%, which gives a doubling time of 14.72 years.
Update: I had to recalculate all the stats to account for inflation, converting all $ figures to 2006 USD. It changes everything...
Okay, here are the numbers. All are in U.S. dollars. The reporting years differ, so pay attention--this will not be an apples to apples comparison, which is why I am focusing on growth in percentages. Reporting from 2002 and 2003 is classed as preliminary.
The Excel spreadsheet I am working on (same as in previous post) is here.
Download us_funding_for_research2.xls It can be found here on the NSF website, labeled Table 1A.
United States Federal Funding for Research
Update: So, this table immediately below becomes the raw statistics. I will replicate the table after converting all figures to 2006 US dollars immediately below this table--but I can't do it right now.
As reported in the previous post, total funding for all fields rose from $4.9 billion to $53 billion in 2003, a CAGR of 7.28%, which doubles every 9.86 years. We start with category totals.
Sector Period Covered CAGR Doubling (in years)
Total 1970-2003 7.28% 9.86
Life sciences (total) 1970-2003 9.20% 7.88
Medical sci (total) 1970-2001 8.11% 8.89
Psychology (total) 1970-2003 6.63% 10.8
Physical sci (total) 1970-2003 5.14% 13.83
Environ sci (total) 1970-2003 6.30% 11.35
Math & comp. sci (tot) 1970-2003 10.54% 6.92
Engineering (tot) 1970-2003 5.39% 13.20
Social sci (total) 1970-2003 4.82% 14.72
Other (total) 1970-2003 9.40% 7.72
Enlightening, to say the least. There's a bit of chicken and egg thinking we could do here. We know that the number of people entering engineering fields has decreased, while the numbers entering computer science have skyrocketed--are they following the money, or is the money following them? That kind of thing. (Doesn't seem to apply to social sciences, however...) but that's for better mathematicians with more time on their hands.
Oh, heck. You need the starting and ending sums to really see if any of the broad categories are 'being cheated' at the expense of others. Here they are. It makes some funding decisions look a bit more rational, in my opinion.
Update: Again, this table is replicated below after I converti all figures to 2006 U.S. dollars in the next day or so. This table is just the raw numbers, hence not of much use other than for comparison.
(In '000's of $--so Life sciences starting total is $1.439 billion)
Category Starting Ending
Life sciences 1,439,815 28,672,784
Medical sciences 542,795 6,585,198 (2001!)
Psychology 107,577 955,171
Physical sciences 946,246 5,200,445
Environmental sci 485,567 3,878,793
Math & comp. sci 94,945 2,866,091
Engineering 1,539,336 9,160,639
Social sciences 212,262 1,050,327
Other 75,050 1,592,634
I'll do the subcategories in another post.
Update: Here, everything is converted to 2006 US dollars. Watch the magic of inflation erode U.S. superiority in research...
(In '000's of $--so Life sciences starting total is $1.439 billion)
Category Starting Ending
Life sciences 1,439,815 28,672,784
Medical sciences 542,795 6,585,198 (2001!)
Psychology 107,577 955,171
Physical sciences 946,246 5,200,445
Environmental sci 485,567 3,878,793
Math & comp. sci 94,945 2,866,091
Engineering 1,539,336 9,160,639
Social sciences 212,262 1,050,327
Other 75,050 1,592,634
Sector Period Covered CAGR Doubling (in years)
Total 1970-2003 7.28% 9.86
Life sciences (total) 1970-2003 9.20% 7.88
Medical sci (total) 1970-2001 8.11% 8.89
Psychology (total) 1970-2003 6.63% 10.8
Physical sci (total) 1970-2003 5.14% 13.83
Environ sci (total) 1970-2003 6.30% 11.35
Math & comp. sci (tot) 1970-2003 10.54% 6.92
Engineering (tot) 1970-2003 5.39% 13.20
Social sci (total) 1970-2003 4.82% 14.72
Other (total) 1970-2003 9.40% 7.72
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