FEDERAL RESEARCH FUNDING BY ENGINEERING DISCIPLINE IN 2018

By Angela Erdiaw-Kwasie

Reprinted from ASEE Connections

Federal funding for engineering research increased by 5.5 percent, from $6 billion to approximately $6.4 billion, between 2017 and 2018. This marked an improvement over the 2.5 percent increase between the 2016 level—$5.8 billion—and 2017.

Among all the engineering disciplines, electrical and computer engineering accounted for the largest share (15 percent) of all the federal spending throughout this period. It is worth noting that architectural engineering only accounted for 0.3 percent of the total federal funding amount in 2018 but increased by the highest percentage of 1,249.9 percent—from $1.5 million to $20.8 million—between 2017 and 2018.

Most other major disciplines experienced increases, with the exception of electrical engineering, chemical engineering, and aerospace engineering.

Federal Research Funding by Engineering Discipline: 2017–18 (in Dollars)

Source: ASEE’s Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges