The University of Maryland has cracked the top 20 on a national list of university research and development spending for the first time.
Johns Hopkins University, as usual, topped annual National Science Foundation list, spending $2.9 billion on research and development projects in fiscal year 2019, a new record for the school that has led all U.S. universities in R&D spending for 41 years straight. But unlike in previous years, Hopkins was joined in the top 20 by another Maryland institution — or rather two.
University of Maryland, College Park (UMd.) and University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) were ranked as a single research entity on the expenditures list for the first time in fiscal 2019. The shift in calculation allowed College Park to rise 33 spots from its fiscal 2018 rankings position at No. 47, and UMB jumped even further up from No. 55. Combined, the institutions ranked at No. 14 overall, with R&D expenditures totaling $1.097 billion in fiscal 2019. University of Maryland also ranked eighth for spending among public institutions.
Virginia has two schools in the top 50, the University of Virginia at No. 44 and Virginia Tech at No. 48.
The College Park and Baltimore campuses have been working to formally join forces in research for nearly a decade. Their partnership is officially known as "MPowering the State," and includes joint faculty appointments and academic offerings, shared resources, cross-disciplinary research facilities, including the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research and the Maryland Blended Reality Center, and a joint technology commercialization operation. The partnership became recognized in state law in 2016, through the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act.
Recognition of the campuses' combined status elevated the University of Maryland to a station among the nation's most prestigious and powerful research institutions, as recognized by the annual NSF rankings. In the latest rankings, Maryland also joins a small group of six states with more than one university spending $1 billion or more per year on research.
“Our University of Maryland research enterprise provides the opportunity for us to engage in exciting new areas of research that combine the strengths of experts in Baltimore and College Park to take on the world’s greatest challenges,” Laurie E. Locascio, who was appointed to lead the joint research enterprise in 2018, said in a statement. “This ranking reflects our status as a thriving and powerful research engine.”
The concept of combining research efforts and resources across multiple physical locations is not unique. In fact, a significant chunk of Hopkins' annual R&D spending — more than $1 billion — can be attributed to Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory, which is stationed on a separate campus in Laurel.
The NSF reported total research spending at 913 universities across the country increased 5.7% to $4.5 billion. The universities ranked among the top 30 accounted for 42% of the total spend.
Hopkins' R&D expenditures increased 9.6% from fiscal 2018. Hopkins remains the only school to have crossed the $2 billion spending threshold to date.
Below are the top five spenders:
- Hopkins — $2.917 billion
- University of Michigan — $1.676 billion
- University of California, San Francisco — $1.595 billion
- University of Pennsylvania — $1.506 billion
- University of Washington, Seattle — $1.426 billion
