Federal research obligations rose 15% in real terms since 2005, but life sciences' share fell from 52% to 39% while every other field gained ground
NSF NCSES Survey of Federal Funds for R&D, research obligations by field of science, FY2005 vs FY2024
Summary
Total federal research obligations (basic + applied, all agencies, all performers) rose from $53.7B in FY2005 to $99.6B in FY2024 — a real, CPI-adjusted increase of about +15% once inflation is stripped out. But the money moved sharply between fields. Life sciences fell from 52.3% to 38.8% of the total — a 13.5-point drop in share, and the only broad field whose real (inflation-adjusted) dollar total actually shrank, by about 14.5%. Every other broad field gained share: engineering, physical sciences, computer/math sciences, psychology, and social sciences all grew faster than the total, with psychology (+74% real) and social sciences (+78% real) growing fastest among established disciplines.
Data source and method
Figures come from research.nsf_rd_by_field in this corpus, itself sourced from NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) Survey of Federal Funds for R&D — the authoritative federal series on obligations by field of science, covering ALL federal funding agencies and ALL performers (universities, federal labs, industry, nonprofits), not just university-performed research. This table covers research only (basic + applied); it does not break out experimental development spending by field, because NCSES itself has never published that crosscut.
FY2005 was compared against FY2024 rather than FY2025: FY2025 is present in the table but still preliminary (NCSES withholds detailed sub-field data until the following year's edition finalizes it), so a same-vintage, fully-detailed comparison requires FY2024 as the most recent complete year — a 19-year window, the closest "twenty years" the finalized data supports.
NCSES revised its field-of-R&D taxonomy in 2021. "Computer sciences and mathematics" (one FY2005 category) was split into "Computer and information sciences" and "Mathematics and statistics" by FY2024; these were summed back together for a like-for-like comparison. "Environmental sciences" was renamed "Geosciences, atmospheric sciences, and ocean sciences." All dollar figures are current-year (nominal) USD millions as published; real comparisons use the BLS CPI-U annual average to convert FY2005 dollars into FY2024 dollars.
The reshuffling, field by field
| Life sciences | $28,128M (52.3%) | $38,622M (38.8%) | -13.5 pts | -14.5% |
| Engineering | $8,553M (15.9%) | $17,551M (17.6%) | +1.7 pts | +27.8% |
| Physical sciences | $5,494M (10.2%) | $12,759M (12.8%) | +2.6 pts | +44.6% |
| Other fields (nec) | $2,089M (3.9%) | $8,978M (9.0%) | +5.1 pts | +167.6% |
| Computer sciences & math | $2,983M (5.6%) | $7,529M (7.6%) | +2.0 pts | +57.1% |
| Environmental/geosciences | $3,503M (6.5%) | $5,693M (5.7%) | -0.8 pts | +1.2% |
| Psychology | $1,892M (3.5%) | $5,286M (5.3%) | +1.8 pts | +73.9% |
| Social sciences | $1,097M (2.0%) | $3,138M (3.2%) | +1.1 pts | +78.1% |
| All fields (total) | $53,738M | $99,556M | — | +15.3% |
| All fields (total) | $53,738M | $99,556M | — | +15.3% |
| Computer sciences & math | $2,983M (5.6%) | $7,529M (7.6%) | +2.0 pts | +57.1% |
| Engineering | $8,553M (15.9%) | $17,551M (17.6%) | +1.7 pts | +27.8% |
| Environmental/geosciences | $3,503M (6.5%) | $5,693M (5.7%) | -0.8 pts | +1.2% |
| Life sciences | $28,128M (52.3%) | $38,622M (38.8%) | -13.5 pts | -14.5% |
| Other fields (nec) | $2,089M (3.9%) | $8,978M (9.0%) | +5.1 pts | +167.6% |
| Physical sciences | $5,494M (10.2%) | $12,759M (12.8%) | +2.6 pts | +44.6% |
| Psychology | $1,892M (3.5%) | $5,286M (5.3%) | +1.8 pts | +73.9% |
| Social sciences | $1,097M (2.0%) | $3,138M (3.2%) | +1.1 pts | +78.1% |
| Life sciences | $28,128M (52.3%) | $38,622M (38.8%) | -13.5 pts | -14.5% |
| Engineering | $8,553M (15.9%) | $17,551M (17.6%) | +1.7 pts | +27.8% |
| Physical sciences | $5,494M (10.2%) | $12,759M (12.8%) | +2.6 pts | +44.6% |
| All fields (total) | $53,738M | $99,556M | — | +15.3% |
| Environmental/geosciences | $3,503M (6.5%) | $5,693M (5.7%) | -0.8 pts | +1.2% |
| Computer sciences & math | $2,983M (5.6%) | $7,529M (7.6%) | +2.0 pts | +57.1% |
| Other fields (nec) | $2,089M (3.9%) | $8,978M (9.0%) | +5.1 pts | +167.6% |
| Psychology | $1,892M (3.5%) | $5,286M (5.3%) | +1.8 pts | +73.9% |
| Social sciences | $1,097M (2.0%) | $3,138M (3.2%) | +1.1 pts | +78.1% |
| Life sciences | $28,128M (52.3%) | $38,622M (38.8%) | -13.5 pts | -14.5% |
| Engineering | $8,553M (15.9%) | $17,551M (17.6%) | +1.7 pts | +27.8% |
| Physical sciences | $5,494M (10.2%) | $12,759M (12.8%) | +2.6 pts | +44.6% |
| All fields (total) | $53,738M | $99,556M | — | +15.3% |
| Other fields (nec) | $2,089M (3.9%) | $8,978M (9.0%) | +5.1 pts | +167.6% |
| Computer sciences & math | $2,983M (5.6%) | $7,529M (7.6%) | +2.0 pts | +57.1% |
| Environmental/geosciences | $3,503M (6.5%) | $5,693M (5.7%) | -0.8 pts | +1.2% |
| Psychology | $1,892M (3.5%) | $5,286M (5.3%) | +1.8 pts | +73.9% |
| Social sciences | $1,097M (2.0%) | $3,138M (3.2%) | +1.1 pts | +78.1% |
| Other fields (nec) | $2,089M (3.9%) | $8,978M (9.0%) | +5.1 pts | +167.6% |
| Physical sciences | $5,494M (10.2%) | $12,759M (12.8%) | +2.6 pts | +44.6% |
| Computer sciences & math | $2,983M (5.6%) | $7,529M (7.6%) | +2.0 pts | +57.1% |
| Psychology | $1,892M (3.5%) | $5,286M (5.3%) | +1.8 pts | +73.9% |
| Engineering | $8,553M (15.9%) | $17,551M (17.6%) | +1.7 pts | +27.8% |
| Social sciences | $1,097M (2.0%) | $3,138M (3.2%) | +1.1 pts | +78.1% |
| Environmental/geosciences | $3,503M (6.5%) | $5,693M (5.7%) | -0.8 pts | +1.2% |
| Life sciences | $28,128M (52.3%) | $38,622M (38.8%) | -13.5 pts | -14.5% |
| All fields (total) | $53,738M | $99,556M | — | +15.3% |
| Other fields (nec) | $2,089M (3.9%) | $8,978M (9.0%) | +5.1 pts | +167.6% |
| Social sciences | $1,097M (2.0%) | $3,138M (3.2%) | +1.1 pts | +78.1% |
| Psychology | $1,892M (3.5%) | $5,286M (5.3%) | +1.8 pts | +73.9% |
| Computer sciences & math | $2,983M (5.6%) | $7,529M (7.6%) | +2.0 pts | +57.1% |
| Physical sciences | $5,494M (10.2%) | $12,759M (12.8%) | +2.6 pts | +44.6% |
| Engineering | $8,553M (15.9%) | $17,551M (17.6%) | +1.7 pts | +27.8% |
| All fields (total) | $53,738M | $99,556M | — | +15.3% |
| Environmental/geosciences | $3,503M (6.5%) | $5,693M (5.7%) | -0.8 pts | +1.2% |
| Life sciences | $28,128M (52.3%) | $38,622M (38.8%) | -13.5 pts | -14.5% |
Life sciences is still by far the largest single field of federal research (its 2024 sub-fields: biological/biomedical sciences $19.4B, health sciences $13.5B), but its dominance has eroded steadily — it took over half of all federal research money in 2005 and takes under 40% today, a genuine, large compositional shift rather than noise.
The "Other fields" category's +168% real growth is the largest percentage move in the table, but should be read cautiously: NCSES's 2021 taxonomy revision reclassified several categories, and "Other fields" (which by 2024 includes an "All other fields" catch-all of $7.6B alongside smaller named categories) is the most likely place for reclassified spending to land. Some of that growth is real, some is a definitional artifact of the taxonomy change — this table cannot separate the two.
Caveat: what this table does and doesn't cover
This series covers research obligations only (not development), across all federal funding agencies and all performers — it is broader than NSF's Higher Education R&D (HERD) survey, which is scoped to university-performed R&D only, and NSF's Table 7 federal-obligations table, which does not break out by field at all. Externally-compiled "federal R&D by field" figures from sources like AAAS report R&D total (research + development combined) and will differ from these numbers by each field's development share — typically larger in life sciences (via NIH) and defense-adjacent engineering, smaller elsewhere. No externally published R&D-only-by-field series was found to cross-check against for this specific comparison; the underlying NCSES Survey of Federal Funds for R&D is itself the standard, widely-cited federal source for this measure.
Every query behind this report
3 warehouse calls ran in this session, in order. Each is reproducible against the same snapshot.
query — 17 rows — 1629 ms
SELECT year, rd_field, obligations_usd_million FROM research.nsf_rd_by_field WHERE year IN (2005,2024) AND field_level=1 ORDER BY year, rd_fieldquery — 2 rows — 2398 ms
SELECT year, rd_field, obligations_usd_million FROM research.nsf_rd_by_field WHERE year IN (2005,2024) AND field_level=0query — 49 rows — 5085 ms
SELECT rd_field, field_level, obligations_usd_million FROM research.nsf_rd_by_field WHERE year=2024 ORDER BY field_level, obligations_usd_million DESCSources
- NSF NCSES Survey of Federal Funds for R&D — obligations by field of R&D, FY1993-2025 — research.nsf_rd_by_field in this corpus
Show SQL
SELECT year, rd_field, obligations_usd_million FROM research.nsf_rd_by_field WHERE year IN (2005,2024) AND field_level=1 ORDER BY year, rd_field - All-fields totals, FY2005 and FY2024
Show SQL
SELECT year, rd_field, obligations_usd_million FROM research.nsf_rd_by_field WHERE year IN (2005,2024) AND field_level=0 - FY2024 full field detail (level 1 and level 2)
Show SQL
SELECT rd_field, field_level, obligations_usd_million FROM research.nsf_rd_by_field WHERE year=2024 ORDER BY field_level, obligations_usd_million DESC - CPI-U inflation adjustment, FY2005 dollars to FY2024 dollars
Show tool call
adjust_inflation(from_year=2005, base_year=2024, index="cpi_u")