Johns Hopkins First in Science/Engin. Research Spending for 27th Year; Michigan 2nd.

Parents Forum
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<p>Industrial funding for research and development in academic science and engineering (S&E) fields rebounded from a 3-year decline and grew by 7.7%, reaching an all-time high of $2.3 billion in FY 2005, according to data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges.</p>

<p>Top Academic Research Performers</p>

<p>Of the 640 institutions surveyed, the top 20 in terms of total R&D expenditures accounted for 30% of total academic R&D spending (table 4). The top 100 research performers accounted for 80% of all R&D dollars in FY 2005. Two universities were displaced from the top 20 in FY 2005: the University of Colorado slipped from 20th in FY 2004 to 22nd in FY 2005, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign dropped from 18th in FY 2004 to 24th in FY 2005. Replacing them were Columbia University in the City of New York, which moved from 23rd in FY 2004 to 18th in FY 2005, and the University of Florida, which climbed from 27th to 20th. Duke University had the most significant change of rank within the top 20, an increase of over $100 million in academic R&D spending moved them from 14th in FY 2004 to 10th in FY 2005.</p>

<pre><code>1 Johns Hopkins U.
2 U. MI all campuses
3 U. WI Madison
4 U. CA, Los Angeles
5 U. CA, San Francisco
6 U. CA, San Diego
7 Stanford U.
8 U. WA
9 U. Pennsylvania
</code></pre>

<p>10 Duke U.
11 PA State U. all campuses
12 OH State U. all campuses
13 Cornell U. all campuses
14 M.I.T.
15 U. CA, Berkeley
16 U. MN all campuses
17 U. CA, Davis
18 Columbia U. in the City of NY
19 Washington U. St. Louis
20 U. Florida</p>

<p>Source: National Science Foundation</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf07311/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf07311/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>What does this mean for the typical parent of an undergraduate student? Facts are nice, but how about some analysis?</p>

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<p>
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What does this mean for the typical parent of an undergraduate student?

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</p>

<p>In the case of the Hopkins numbers, it means nothing. </p>

<p>Roughly half of the $1.4B/year JHU research money goes to the Applied Physics Laboratory 25 miles away. APL has very little interaction with the rest of the university. </p>

<p>Most of the other half goes to the school of medine.</p>

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<p>Do2, you are correct as far as undergraduate education goes. But for graduate students federal and private research monies are extremely important, though even then the prospective grad student research needs to be far more specific in order to determine the research activity of the department and the faculty in his/her area of interest.</p>

<p>My graduate fellowship was funded for 3 years by the USPublic Health Service because of the research being done by department faculty, and more particularly by my advisor, in the area of groundwater contaminant transport, the area I was interested in.</p>

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<p>I beg to differ that these numbers mean 'nothing' to undergraduates.</p>

<p>Undergraduate students on many campuses have the opportunity to participate in undergraduate research programs, especially at a place like Johns Hopkins where roughly ** 80% of students participate in some sort of graduate level research before they graduate. ** Much of the money seen here is placed into multiple divisions of each institution and although this money is not directly alotted to undergraduate students, faculty often choose to spend money conducting their own research projects, projects in which undergraduates can participate, especially at a place like Johns Hopkins, Stanford University or Penn. </p>

<p>It's wise not to discount the value of these monies as I'm sure you know that large volumes of savvy undergraduates at schools like Johns Hopkins or Stanford ** are ** the students doing research at their respective Schools of Medicine or their Applied Physics Laboratory whether it takes places during the semester or over the summer.</p>

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<p>These numbers mean something - but remember that bigger schools have the leg up here, and these are total dollar figures, not per capita. Small schools may have more funding per UG student - and more research opportunities per student than the big schools.</p>

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<p>I'm sure that some undergrads get involved in and greatly benefit from sponsored research, though it is tough for me to figure out how prevalent and practical this is at the different schools my S is applying to. I talked with one EE prof at Hopkins about opportunities for undergraduate research. He said that it happens but takes some initiative on the part of the student. Knock on a faculty member's door and ask if anything was available; if not, knock on the next door, and the next, and the next, and the rest of the doors in Barton Hall. Then come back next semester and try again. I would prefer something a little more structured for kids who maybe aren't as persistent. As for the 80% of undergrads participating in graduate-level research, I am skeptical (as usual). While I was an undergrad, I once got paid $10 to participate for two hours in a Psychology experiment--does that count?</p>

<p>The purpose of my post was to point out that the reason that the reason that Hopkins misleadinginly shows up at the top of the chart with $1.4 billion is about $700 million of military, space, and homeland defense money going to APL and a few hundred million more dollars poured into the med school. I wouldn't want anyone to think that Hopkins has twice as much research money available for graduate/undergraduate research as the next closest school based on the table. I'm guessing that medical schools account for a huge chunk of most of the non-big-State-Univerisities on this list. Funding per student? Who knows.</p>

<p>Having graduated from Hopkins and having worked at APL for many years, I can tell you that there is extremely little interaction between the two. I do know of some APL staff getting their PhD at Hopkins, and have known of a post-doc and a couple of EE profs from Hopkins doing some research or consulting at APL, but as far as undergrads or even your typical grad students, there is virtually no interaction or shared funding. </p>

<p>As for the relationship between Hopkins undergrads and the med school, I'll defer to others with more knowledge, but I would guess that there is probably more interaction there. When I was at Hopkins a hundred years ago, I knew people who took the shuttle over to the hospital to take a class or work in a lab.</p>

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<p>There is a big difference between sponsored research and institutional research. Anyone who has put together a research grant proposal and then gone through a project audit knows what I am talking about. In my 32 years as a university professor, I have never seen a proposal submitted for a sponsored undergraduate research project. And I have seen thousands and written hundreds as PI.</p>

<p>Now undergrads do participate in sponsored research as paid assistants, but unlike grad students, their pay cannot be reimbursed through the research grant in accordance with OMB Circ a-21. They are always paid directly by the university. But the key thing to realize is that they are assisting in an ongoing department research and not their own project. This is not a bad thing, it is just not undergraduate research.</p>

<p>Essentially all undergraduate research is institutionally financed which does not show up on the OP listing. And normally the funding is for supplies, travel, minor equipment purchases, printing, etc. The college our son attends has an active undergraduate research program and provides institute funding. <a href="http://www.rpi.edu/dept/urp/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.rpi.edu/dept/urp/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>It means they will be surrounded by folks developing new WMDs, and ways to deliver them. :eek:</p>

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<p>Hopkins has been asked to remove the APL from their reported data but claimed accounting problems. The list usually has a footnote indicating the appoximate amount going for the APL so people can make that adjustment.</p>

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<p>That is not totally correct. NIH do awards R21 grants to undergraduate institutions for undergraduate training in research. The guideline is very specific for "undergraduate institutions" only. Places like Hopkins will be excluded. </p>

<p>Regarding total funding, it is always misleading since a few large projects such as APL skew the stat badly.</p>

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<p>First, I do agree that the relationships between JHU and APL is not an intensely strong relationship; however the relationship between the undergraduates and the med school, BSPH and the SON is very strong. </p>

<p>Second, the volume of undergraduates conducting research is 80% based on what JHU reports. </p>

<p>Source: <a href="http://www.jhu.edu/%7Ejhumag/0201web/oncampus.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0201web/oncampus.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>*Early explorations in the field *</p>

<p>Hopkins sophomore Abigail L. McGuirk is interested in the dead.</p>

<p>As a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and an undergraduate in the Near Eastern Studies Department, she is learning to analyze decomposition processes that affect how well artifacts are preserved. "In other words," she says, "I study how things rot."</p>

<p>McGuirk is spending a month this winter in Egypt working with Betsy Bryan, chair of Hopkins Near Eastern Studies Department, excavating ancient ruins in the precinct of the Temple of the Goddess Mut at Karnak. On her journey back in time McGuirk is also marking a most modern phenomenon--the emergence of the undergraduate research scholar.</p>

<p>As she puts it: "You are expected to have grand research projects when you are a graduate student, but when you are an undergraduate, it's different. You can do research without the full pressure of 'It's your career here.' You can say, 'I need help. How do I do this?'"</p>

<p>McGuirk, 19, is one of a growing number of Hopkins students pursuing research projects long before they contemplate a thesis or dissertation. **Theodore Poehler, Hopkins vice provost for research, estimates that 80 percent of Hopkins undergraduates take part in funded research projects, one-on-one mentorships with faculty, or clinical and other studies in Hopkins labs. **Many are preparing for grad school and beyond."There is this realization that being involved in research makes a difference," says Gary Ostrander, Hopkins associate dean for research. "They see it as a prerequisite and a requirement."</p>

<p>Increasingly, administrators say, prospective freshmen applying to Hopkins have pursued research in high school. And this isn't your standard science fair fare. "Many are veteran researchers by the time they apply to Hopkins," Poehler says. "A small, more precocious group is doing research with NIH."</p>

<p>At Hopkins, the undergraduate projects are as varied as thumbprints: one student spends a summer studying cathedral art in southern France, another looks at the molecular mechanism for learning and memory, a third explores Polish economic reform after the Cold War, and a few more have gone to China to study orphanages or HIV rates.</p>

<p>Partly in response to the demand, opportunities for such experience at Hopkins have boomed over the past decade, with the university increasing research funding, and fostering mentorships and international internships in Asia and Latin America. The Provost's Undergraduate Research Awards, $2,500 grants for student-proposed projects, were founded in the early 1990s. The Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Program, inaugurated in spring 1999, provides up to $10,000 per student--$2,500 a year to 20 freshmen and 10 sophomores--to pursue research while at Hopkins.</p>

<p>And in 2000, Hopkins awarded the first $20,000 postgraduate grant for a year of travel and independent study abroad. The Florence "Meg" Long Walsh/Second Decade Society Leadership Award, which evolved from a smaller SDS grant, was given to graduating senior Thach-Giao Truong, who is studying the impact of the global marketplace on younger generations of Vietnamese. (See Sept. '00 issue, p. 41).</p>

<p>"Many of these programs provide funding and mentors for non-science research," says Steven R. David, associate dean for academic affairs. "That's where the money is harder to come by." --Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson</p>

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<p>Yes, I read the pretty articles in the glossy magazines, too, but I tend to take them with a grain of salt (particularly in this case when I recall the Vice Provost quoting the 80% number in this 5-year-old article as being one of the less approachable of my EE profs from back in the dark ages). I think I'm probably not being fair in carrying along my experiences from nearly 30 years ago, but a recent visit to the department didn't change do much to change my impression.</p>

<p>The undergraduate research craze is probably going on everywhere at varying levels, but I just can't figure out how to cut through the hype and compare different schools, all of which are making grand claims. A few (e.g. RPI, MIT) have broad UROP programs set up, which makes their claims a little more believable. Others make a big deal over the availability of funds for a couple of dozen students out of a few thousand. (This might be an argument for the big-fish-in-the-small-pond strategy of selecting a school where the student might be near the top of the class.)</p>

<p>I'm not sure how much difference undergraduate research would make for my S, anyway, as he is interested in engineering. I expect it would be a good experience, but senior design projects seem to be de rigeur and might be comparable to research. Pursuing graduate work beyond the masters is not all that common among US engineering students. (Good-paying jobs are available without a PhD, and it seems like the majority of engineering grad students are internationals.) If my kid were majoring in chemistry or archeology, I might feel differently. </p>

<p>P.S. I recently made an unpleasant observation on my own susceptibility to the marketing. My S got the typical engineering PR fluff magazine from Case Western in the mail the other day. It wasn't printed on glossy paper, and I could feel myslef discounting the quality of their engineering program compared with the other schools that spent more on printing. It makes me wonder how the Superbowl ads affedted me subconsciously!</p>

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<p>What they don't tell you is that Betsy only takes one or two undergrads to Egypt each year. (Except this year, because she broke her leg.)</p>

<p>originaloog, would you consider the REUs sponsored research or institutional research? The $ comes from the NSF, but colleges organize it.</p>

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<p>warblers, the NSF REU program is fantastic but I would not consider it sponsored research as that is normally understood. The REU opportunities are normally summer programs where participants are away from their home institution and faculty. Secondly, and most importantly, the research projects are not those proposed by the student themselves but proposed by the program faculty. Finally, the REU is not a part of the student's undergraduate academic plan.</p>

<p>So while students participating in the NSF REU program are financially supported by program grants and they are participating in meaningful research, I wouldn't consider it sponsored research. Others may disagree with my assessment and that is fine. I am just an old fuddy duddy when it comes to academics.</p>