Introduction to Universities Reporting Any Federal Research within the Past Five Years

In the published version of this study, this section focused on The Center for Measuring University Performance’s Research Universities, which consist of academic institutions that had more than $40 million in federal research. For the web user, we expand our universe to include any institution that reported federal research expenditures to NSF in the past five years. We then categorize the institutions into one of five research groups – Over $40 million, $20-$40 million, $1-$5 million, and Under $1 million – based on its most recent federal research expenditures.

In the following tables, institutions are listed alphabetically with the most current data available. The MUP Center provides both the national rank (rank among all universities) and the control rank (rank within private or public universities). We include all years of data collected for each measure, which includes more years than the data years used in each of The Top American Research Universities reports. The prior years’ data and ranks presented here may differ slightly from our last report due to revised figures or estimates from the data source or institution.

In addition to the nine performance variables presented in The Top American Research Universities tables, these tables also include other institutional characteristics related to student enrollment, medical schools, land grant status, ownership, research focus, and National Merit and National Achievement Scholars.The published Top American Research Universities report includes an extensive table identifying adjustments to any of the data included in the report or these tables. In addition, the Data Notes and Data Source Links listed at the bottom of this page provide additional information on the sources for The MUP Center data.

Tables in this section include:

  • Total Research Expenditures (in current and constant dollars)
  • Federal Research Expenditures (in current and constant dollars)
  • Research by Discipline provides the current year’s expenditures broken out by major discipline.
  • Endowment Assets(in current and constant dollars)
  • Annual Giving(in current and constant dollars)
  • National Academy Membership
  • Faculty Awards
  • Doctorates Awarded
  • Postdoctoral Appointees
  • SAT Range Scores
  • National Merit and Achievement Scholars
  • Change: Research presents 10-year trend data on total, federal, and non-federal research in constant dollars.
  • Change: Private Support and Doctorates contains trend data on endowment assets (1995 and 2004) and annual giving in constant dollars, and doctorates awarded.
  • Change: Students provides 10-year trend data on National Merit and Achievement Scholars (1994 and 2003), and student headcount enrollment.
  • Institutional Characteristics includes state location, highest degree offered, medical school and land grant status, federal research focus (summary of federal research by discipline), and total student enrollment.
  • Student Characteristics contains headcount enrollment data broken out by level (i.e., undergraduate, graduate, first-professional), part-time enrollment by level, and degrees awarded.
  • MUP Measures presents the number of times a university ranks in the top 25 (or 26-50) on the nine quality measures in this year’s report as compared to past years. These tables are presented with overall standings, as well as by control.

Data found in these tables may not always match the figures published by the original source. MUP makes adjustments, when necessary, to ensure that the data reflect the activity at a single campus rather than that of a multiple campus institution or state university system. When data are missing from the original source, we may substitute another figure, if available. A full discussion of this subject, and the various adjustments or substitutions made to the original data, is in the Data Notes section on this site.

Source Notes
Data Notes
Data Source Links
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