NYU ranked No. 1 among New York colleges after spending $1.46 billion on research and development in the 2022-23 academic year, the National Science Foundation found in its annual survey of U.S. universities.
In the NSF’s Higher Education Research and Development questionnaire, 914 universities across the country self-reported how much funding they received from specific federal agencies and non-federal entities like institutional funds and local government, as well as how much money was allocated toward fields related to the sciences and humanities. NYU — which also ranked No. 12 nationally and No. 5 among private universities — saw a 14.2% increase in R&D expenditure from the 2021-22 year.
In a statement to WSN, NYU Chief Research Officer Stacie Bloom credited the rise in ranking over the last decade to the university’s Office of Research Development, which helps faculty members find funding opportunities and submit their proposals to organizations such as the NSF and National Institutes of Health.
“NYU provides seed money, so if faculty needs some quick support to do pilot studies or preliminary research, without having to go through a whole big application process, research administration at NYU has active mechanisms to support faculty,” GPH professor Raymond Niaura said in an interview with WSN. “Faculty now are becoming much more successful in getting external funding for their research work.”
The NSF also calculated that federal funding covered 54% of NYU’s research in its recent report, amounting to around $787 million. Other New York private universities like Columbia University and Cornell University received around 73.67% and 48.56% of their total expenditure from federal funding, respectively.
With President-elect Donald Trump soon to begin his second term, experts have questioned whether the U.S. government could withhold grants for research in climate change, the social sciences and other fields that counter its political values. During Trump’s first administration, NYU received around $200 million less annually in federal research grants than under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Mark Jit, a professor at the School of Global Public Health, told WSN that NYU’s collaboration with institutions and researchers from across the world has helped it stand out as a research university. This semester, NYU has launched several initiatives to expand its STEM research presence in foreign countries, including an artificial intelligence degree program with a Korean university and a project to advance drone technology with a research center in Finland.
“We should always remember why we’re doing the research — it’s to improve the world, to make discoveries, to find out more ways that we can make this world a better place for everybody,” Jit said. “I hope as NYU is building its reputation and attracting great students and great faculty, it’ll be doing this so that we can all make the world a better place.”
Contact Liyana Illyas at [email protected].
