Closing the Gaps: UT-Austin Research Expenditures Up 107% Since 1999

By Sam Bohmfalk in Promote & Protect on August 19, 2011 at 10:48 am | No Comments

In October 2000, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board released Closing the Gaps, a plan to address education inequalities within the state, and between Texas and other states. This is the last in a four-part series analyzing UT-Austin’s progress toward reaching Closing the Gaps goals.

The University of Texas at Austin has boosted research expenditures by 107 percent since 1999 and is 78 percent of the way toward its 2015 Closing the Gaps goal of $630 million in annual research expenditures.

For FY 2010, research expenditures from federal, state, private, and institutional sources totaled more than $548 million, more than double the $265 million that was spent in 1999.

The Closing the Gaps in Research Goal seeks to boost the amount of federal science and engineering research and development obligations going to Texas institutions to 6.5 percent of the national total.

Statewide, public universities and health-related institutions were not on target to meat this goal, capturing only a 5.6 percent share of federal obligations for science and engineering research and development last year.

As a percentage, that number is down from the state’s 2003 high of 6.1 percent of the federal total, but slightly up from 2000 when the share was just 5.3 percent.

The has, however, met its goal to increase total research expenditures at public universities and health-related institutions from $1.45 billion in 1999 to $3 billion by 2015. As of 2010, the state had already met that goal, five years early, with $3.55 billion in research and development expenditures.

UT’s College of Education recently vaulted to its highest-ever ranking asthe second-best education program in the country (tied with Harvard) and the best public program based largely on its No. 1 ranking in research expenditures.

Click the graph above to see how UT’s research and development expenditures have increased over time.

Tags: closing the gaps, research