<p>NSF Rankings by net research expenditures in engineering...something cool to peruse over</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf09303/pdf/tab64.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf09303/pdf/tab64.pdf</a></p>
<p>my comments...</p>
<p>-what's john hopkins doin' at the top of the list, I thought it was a small engineering school
-what do they mean by Penn state (all campuses)? would that be eqv to saying U of I at chicago plus urbana? same goes with U of MI (all campuses)...hmmm
-the data is kinda old (2007)
-MIT's is 5x cal tech....shocker
-what's engineering, nec? looking at Harvard's zero's and thought about it but..??
-I would have expected Civil to be lower than ME and EE, isn't Civil inherently more industry oriented? what would they spend all the money on for research?</p>
<p>original source
nsf.gov</a> - SRS Academic Research and Development Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2007 - US National Science Foundation (NSF)</p>
<p>They’re likely combining campuses when a university has a main campus with satellites. For example, Georgia Tech is a university with a main campus (Atlanta) and very small satellite campuses (Savannah and Metz, France) with insignificant research. So they are all combined. This is in contrast to a university system that has multiple universities (e.g. UC is a system and UCLA and UCSD are distinct universities, just like USG is a system and GaTech and UGA are distinct universities). Since most states have only one or two public university systems, if you combined all of the systems you would actually be looking at research activity by state, and not by university. </p>
<p>“Engineering, nec” is probably a catch-all for all engineering not otherwise categorized.</p>
<p>Hopkins is first entirely because of the Applied Physics Laboratory and the associated defense contracts. Without that lab, Hopkins would be #44. The question is: how can you accurately separate the engineering occurring in that lab from the non-engineering defense activities? You can’t. That’s why they had to impute the data, which is highly suspect because of the disparity between schools.</p>
<p>Also, Caltech’s relatively low expenditure is because JPL isn’t included. While I’m by no means an expert, I assume many Caltech professors perform research at JPL under their $1.36 billion budget (not certain how much of that is research, and even then, how much is internal JPL and how much is Caltech).</p>
<p>I don’t know any professors with joint appointments at JPL and Caltech, though I do know a few grad students who spend a decent chunk of time at both places. I think there are also some “staff scientists” or whatever title they have now at Caltech which also spend time at JPL.</p>
<p>Also, I imagine MIT has 5x the expenditures as Caltech since they’re nearly that much larger. Also, they may or may not be including the MIT Lincoln Lab which handles a bit of defense/government money. So if JPL isn’t being counted but Lincoln Lab is, that could also skew things.</p>
<p>Also, how is the University of Dayton spending more money in Materials Science research than any other school? I haven’t even heard of them. =</p>
<p>We recruit at the University of Dayton specifically because of the Research Institute and their association with Wright Patt. They actually have certain specialties…like impact dynamics…that are world-class. It’s a good example of why people shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss so-called 3rd-tier schools.</p>
<p>Eastern Michigan is on the list despite not having an engineering school (They have a school of Engineering Technology).</p>
<p>Yup, lot of engineering internships in Dayton thanks to the AFB. Glad to see OSU is number 7 overall, that bodes well. :-)</p>