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News Release

Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
901 South Bond Street, Suite 540
Baltimore, Maryland 21231
Phone: 443-287-9960 | Fax: 443-287-9920

December 3, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Lisa De Nike
(443) 287-9960
LDE@jhu.edu

Johns Hopkins First in R&D Expenditures for 28th Year
Spending nearly $1.5 billion in FY2006

The Johns Hopkins University performed $1.49 billion in science, medical and engineering research in fiscal year 2006, making it the leading U.S. academic institution in total R&D spending for the 28th year in a row, according to a new National Science Foundation ranking.

The university also ranked first — once again — on the NSF's separate list of federally funded research and development, spending $1.3 billion in FY2006 on research supported by such agencies as the National Institutes of Health, the NSF, NASA and the Department of Defense.

In FY2002, Johns Hopkins became the first university to cross the $1 billion threshold on either list, recording $1.14 billion in total research and $1.023 billion in federally sponsored research that year. To date, no other institution has reached that $1 billion mark. The University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked second in R&D spending in FY2006 at $831.9 million. The University of Washington was second in federally financed R&D at $650.4 million.

Funding at Johns Hopkins underwrites projects investigating everything from strategies for reducing deaths from malaria worldwide to the microscopic world of stem cells to how a mysterious force called dark energy is fueling an acceleration of the expansion of the universe.

Research conducted at the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Bloomberg School of Public Health, School of Medicine, Whiting School of Engineering, School of Nursing and Applied Physics Laboratory is supported by funding from both federal and other sources.

Aris Melissaratos, senior adviser to the president for enterprise development at Johns Hopkins, said that the university's success in winning research grants lays the basis for new businesses and products based on discoveries by university researchers.

"Johns Hopkins is putting renewed emphasis on getting the results of our faculty's research out into the marketplace where it can do the most good for patients and consumers," said Melissaratos, who oversees technology transfer at the university. "In fiscal 2006, the university earned $12.5 million from 799 licenses and patents. That's a good performance, and we're working hard to do an even better job of creating connections between our researchers and business." Johns Hopkins has led the NSF's research expenditure ranking each year since 1979, when the agency's methodology changed to include spending by the Applied Physics Laboratory in the university's totals. Behind the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the FY2006 total research expenditure list is the University of California, Los Angeles, at $811 million, followed by the University of Michigan with $800 million. Completing the top five, with $796 million, is the University of California, San Francisco.

The total funding ranking includes research support not only from federal agencies, but also from corporations, foundations and other sources.