Increased R&D investment across sectors, especially in basic research, is important for the U.S. to remain competitive, and support from philanthropy provides a particularly unique and strategic advantage.
The Science Philanthropy Alliance is pleased to continue its partnership with the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Frontiers in Science and Innovation Policy (FSIP) Program to release its Science Philanthropy Indicators Report. Using National Science Foundation (NSF) and other data, this interactive report examines research and development (R&D) funding in the United States through a philanthropic lens, with a focus on the higher education and nonprofit research sectors.
The Science Philanthropy Indicators Report 2026 features the latest available NSF data, representing a 71-year time series from 1953 to 2024. It offers a unique look at historical trends in support for specific fields of science and engineering and for graduate students and postdocs. This year’s report features two new sections: one with institution-specific data for 2024, and another with international data from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) illustrating how U.S. R&D funding compares to countries around the world. This report builds on the Alliance’s inaugural Science Philanthropy Indicators Report and FSIP’s Science, Philanthropy, and American Leadership, both published in 2023. Our partnership seeks to highlight the role of philanthropy as an important sector of the research enterprise and to encourage more flexible, high-risk, and long-term funding for scientific discovery.
We estimate that philanthropy supported $27.0 billion in basic and applied research expenditures at universities and nonprofit research organizations in 2024, up from $26.2 billion in 2023 and representing 21% of the total support. This includes $18.3 billion in current philanthropy from nonprofit sources and an additional $8.8 billion in legacy philanthropy, which is the annual payout from endowments built up from past giving and investment returns. The federal government remains the largest funder of research at these institutions, totaling $63.6 billion in 2024, or 50% of the total support. This represents a shift since the 1960s, when federal support was more than 70% of the total. We project that federal funding decreased to $59.9B in 2025 and could decrease to $60.4B in 2026. If the President’s Budget for 2027 were enacted, federal support for research at these institutions would further drop by 23% to $48.6B, which is less than the amount of funding available over two decades ago.
Increased support is needed across all science and engineering fields and especially for the next generation of researchers. Our report illustrates that a quarter of all doctoral students and nearly half of all postdocs in science and engineering were supported by federal funding sources in 2024. Approximately half of all graduate students (46%) and postdocs (58%) were international. While the data for 2025 and beyond are not yet available, ongoing and anticipated reductions in federal funding and restrictions on international scholars will decrease the future U.S. science and technology workforce and innovation potential. The report also demonstrates that most support for university R&D is for the life sciences, and that universities in California, New York, and Texas have the most R&D expenditures and graduate students and postdocs in science and engineering.
Our new Global R&D section illustrates that U.S. ranks first in the world in terms of R&D funded by government and by the higher education and nonprofit sectors, including philanthropy. It also ranks first in the world in terms of R&D expenditures performed by higher education. Yet in terms of overall R&D expenditures, including those funded and performed by the business sector, China is now leading, with the U.S. taking second place in 2024. Further, the U.S. ranks seventh in terms of basic research expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product. Increased R&D investment across sectors, especially in basic research, is important for the U.S. to remain competitive, and support from philanthropy provides a particularly unique and strategic advantage.
As the data in our report illustrate, science philanthropy cannot replace federal funding at universities and nonprofit research institutions. While charitable giving in the U.S. now exceeds $600 billion according to Giving USA, our estimates indicate that less than 5% of this giving is dedicated to science philanthropy. Increased philanthropic funding for science would have an outsized impact on scientific discovery and innovation. Yet, federal support for the scientific infrastructure, human capital, and capabilities that have been built over decades must remain in place for philanthropy to have its greatest impact as a nimble, catalytic, and risk-taking complement to government funding.
We will continue to update this report as new data become available. In the meantime, we invite you to explore the data for the fields, institutions, and areas that you are most interested in and to leverage this interactive report to encourage more sustained and flexible support for scientific research.
The Science Philanthropy Alliance is composed of nearly 50 philanthropic organizations dedicated to advancing scientific discovery through visionary philanthropy. To learn more about the Alliance, please contact France Córdova (president@sciphil.org) or Kate Lowry (klowry@sciphil.org). For media inquiries, please contact Dustin Sposato (dsposato@sciphil.org).
The University of California San Diego Frontiers in Science and Innovation Policy program analyzes science and innovation policy to reinvigorate the U.S. system of basic research and innovation. To learn more, please contact Robert Conn (rconn@ucsd.edu) or Chris Martin (chris@vela.science).