Building expertise in high technology: new dynamics of R&D funding at U.S. research universities

This paper is a first cut at a larger research proposal to examine the likely effects of the predicted decline in the federal funding of university research and the growing share of the “research funding pie” that is composed of industry-supported R&D. This research is part of a larger post-doctoral project that focuses on the diffusion of cooperative R&D as a strategic business model in the electronics sector. In particular, this analysis centers on the impact of the increasing reliance of US universities on industry-financed joint research. Given the enormous pressures on the federal budget-most of which will be borne by discretionary spending-and the efforts of research universities to bring in an increasing amount of research funding from industry sources, it is not far-fetched to assume that the forces driving university hiring, retention, curriculum, student recruitment and job placement rates will be dramatically affected by these changes. This analysis considers some of the trends in R&D spending, by source, for the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and explores a few of the implications for the ability of these universities to fulfill their traditional missions