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U.S. research & development statistics from NSF NCSES: national R&D expenditure by performing sector and funding source (National Patterns), federal R&D obligations by agency and performer (Federal Funds), and Higher Education R&D (HERD) expenditure by institution, field, and funding source. R&D is the innovation input; joined to patents (the innovation output) on (state_fips, year) it yields patents-per-R&D-dollar productivity, and to geo/edu for place- and institution-level analysis.

4 datasets · 25 columns

nsf_national_rd · table

NSF NCSES National Patterns of R&D — the top-line macro view of U.S. research spending, from Table 1 (1953→latest). One row per year × decomposition. The all/all total row carries total R&D in current and constant (2017-chained) USD millions plus R&D-as-%-of-GDP; the per- performing-sector (Business / Federal government / Higher education / Other) and per-funding-source (Business / Federal / Other) rows carry R&D-as-%-of-GDP only — Table 1 publishes those breakdowns as shares of GDP, not dollars. Semantically joins econ.fred_indicators (R&D-share-of-GDP) and is the national context for nsf_herd_by_institution.

Column Type Null Description
year integer no Statistics year (partition column; emitted from the Table 1 row)
performing_sector string yes Business / Federal government / Higher education / Other; "All performers" on source-decomposition and total rows
funding_source string yes Business / Federal / Other; "All sources" on performer-decomposition and total rows
rd_type string yes R&D type; Table 1 reports total R&D only ("Total")
rd_expenditure_usd_million double yes Total R&D expenditure in current USD millions; populated only on the all/all total row (Table 1 gives per-sector breakdowns as % of GDP, not dollars)
rd_expenditure_constant_usd_million double yes Total R&D expenditure in constant 2017 USD millions; populated only on the all/all total row
pct_of_gdp double yes R&D as a share of GDP (percent) — total on the all/all row, and by performing sector / funding source on the breakdown rows

nsf_federal_rd_obligations · table

NSF NCSES Survey of Federal Funds for R&D — federal R&D obligations by funding agency × performing sector for the latest fiscal year in the publication (Table 7). Values in current USD millions. rd_field is "All fields" and rd_type is "Total R&D" (Table 7 does not break these out). The reference fiscal year is read from the table title. Shows which federal agencies fund research and where it flows; the agency name aligns with fiscal.usaspending agency budgets for the R&D slice.

Column Type Null Description
year integer no Federal fiscal year (partition column; read from the Table 7 title)
funding_agency string yes Federal agency (or sub-agency) obligating funds; "All agencies" for the national total row
performing_sector string yes Intramural — Federal agencies / Intramural — FFRDCs / Businesses / Higher education / Nonprofit organizations / State and local government / Non-U.S. performers
rd_field string yes S&E field; "All fields" (Table 7 aggregates over field)
rd_type string yes R&D type; "Total R&D" (Table 7 aggregates over type)
obligations_usd_million double yes Federal R&D obligations in current USD millions ("*" in source rounds to 0.0)

nsf_herd_by_institution · table

NSF NCSES Higher Education R&D (HERD) survey — R&D expenditure by academic institution × S&E field × funding source × year, from the per-year institution microdata (herd{year}.csv, a tall EAV file). Projects the two R&D-expenditure question families: "Federal expenditures by field and agency" (funding_source=Federal, federal_agency=column) and "Nonfederal expenditures by field and source" (funding_source=column). Values in USD thousands. Carries the IPEDS UnitID crosswalk into edu and state_fips into geo; the finest-grained NCSES table and the state×year R&D-spend half of the patents-per-R&D-dollar productivity join.

Column Type Null Description
year integer no Fiscal year of expenditure (partition column; from the HERD year field)
inst_id string yes Unique campus identifier (1:1 with the institution, survives name changes); the institution key in the PK
ncses_inst_id string yes NCSES parent/system id — coarser than inst_id (one id can span several campuses); for system-level rollups
institution string yes Institution legal name (inst_name_long); descriptive
ipeds_unitid int yes IPEDS UnitID — FK to edu.ipeds_institutions.unitid; null when NCSES did not match the institution
state_fips string yes 2-digit state FIPS derived from inst_state_code (FK to geo.state_ref)
county_fips string yes County FIPS — not published in HERD microdata (always null)
control string yes Institutional control (Public / Private) — not resolved from microdata (null)
rd_field string yes S&E field (row label of the expenditure question); "All R&D fields" for totals
funding_source string yes Federal for the federal-agency question; otherwise the nonfederal source (Institution / State & local / Business / Nonprofit / All other)
federal_agency string yes Sponsoring federal agency (HHS/NIH, DOD, NSF, DOE, NASA, …); null unless funding_source = Federal
rd_expenditure_usd_thousand double yes R&D expenditure in USD thousands

research_herd_rd_by_state_year · view

HERD R&D expenditure aggregated to state × year — the R&D-spend half of the patents-per-R&D-dollar productivity ratio. Join to patents.patent_assignees (grant counts by state_fips × grant_year) to compute innovation input ÷ output.

View — columns are resolved by the query engine at runtime.