WIKIMEDIA, PEN WAGGENERAs federal dollars leave Washington and head for universities, they fan out to have a broad economic impact. A report published in Science today (April 4) shows that a considerable proportion of the money going into scientific investments actually leaves campus to pay for goods and services at U.S. firms. “The main purpose of science funding isn't as a jobs or stimulus program, but this study shows there are also major short-term economic benefits to science funding,” Bruce Weinberg, a coauthor of the report, said in a press release.
Weinberg, an economist at Ohio State University, and his colleagues tracked the fate of investments at nine large, midwestern universities. In total, the schools received $7 billion in research and development funding in 2012, about half of which came from the federal government. The economists found that $1 billion of that investment was spent on equipment and services from U.S. vendors. Of those expenditures, 16 percent stayed in the university’s home county; another 16 percent remained within the state.
Weinberg’s results also shed light on a diverse workforce. Among those employed by federal research funds, a minority—just about 20 percent—were faculty members, while the rest comprised staff and students, for the most part, along with the ...
