University research funding is getting more concentrated at fewer institutions, according to new analysis from the State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI). The report looked at the 100 largest recipients of new university research dollars, and compared their share of all federal funding to the more than 1300 institutions outside of that category. Researchers found a 3.6 percent increase in the top schools’ share of the pie. This was primarily driven by the top 10 recipients, whose share of all research funding went up 1.6 percent during this period.

Unsurprisingly, this level of recipient concentration also means that federal research is geographically concentrated. According to the report “approximately 60 percent of all new funds for [scientific] R&D at colleges and universities from 2008 to 2016 went to institutions in just three states: Maryland, California and New York.”. These states collectively make up about 20 percent of the total population of the United States. Johns Hopkins University, and their Advanced Physics Laboratory, accounted for 25 percent of all new scientific funding during this period by themselves.

It bears keeping in mind that the top research recipients are not all R1 institutions. In fact, according to the report, “30 of the 115 large, R1 universities fall outside the top 100, including institutions that anchor extended innovation hubs, such as Clemson and the Universities of Nebraska, Oklahoma or Missouri.”

SSTI argues that these findings are limiting economic development in regions that could use it, while concentrating resources in areas that are already wealthy, and that diversifying the federal research portfolio could have positive spillover effects. To read more about the report, click here. For a deeper dive into the numbers, click here.