A massive study of 1.2 million STEM PhD dissertations sheds light on their funding sources and the … More
MIT, Stanford University, and the University of California-Berkeley are the top producers of PhDs across several technology areas critical to U.S. innovation and security, according to a new study.
That same study found that the federal government was the dominant funding source for doctoral STEM research, far outpacing support from both private industry and nonprofit organizations.
In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper titled Funding the U.S. Scientific Training Ecosystem: New Data, Methods, and Evidence, authors Dror Shvadron (University of Toronto), Hansen Zhang (Duke University), Lee Fleming University of California-Berkeley, and Daniel P. Gross (Duke University) examined 1.2 million PhD dissertations completed between 1950 and 2022.
They obtained information about the dissertations from three sources: the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database, which republishes dissertations completed at most universities; OpenAlex, an open-access bibliometric database; and individual university libraries.
For their sample, they identified the university granting the degree and the topic under study. They focused on STEM dissertations in the life sciences, physical sciences, mathematical sciences, and engineering.
Based on the dissertation texts, they also were able to determine the source of financial sponsorship for the research for about 870,000 dissertations out of the 1.2 million. The gap was due primarily to missing full-text data for older dissertations, especially those before 2000.
They also classified those dissertations that addressed any of 18 critical technology areas identified in 2024 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as “critical and emerging technologies (CETs) that are potentially significant to U.S. national security.” Those technologies have been considered crucial to charting “new pathways in American innovation and strengthen the nation’s security.”
The Dominant Universities
The researchers listed the top five universities and sources of support for PhD graduates between 2000 and 2022 in each of the 12 largest CETs: Advanced Computing, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials, Autonomous Systems, Biotechnology, Clean Energy Generation and Storage, Communications and Networking, Data Privacy and Cybersecurity, Microelectronics and Semiconductors, Networked Sensing, Quantum Science, and Space Technology.
MIT ranked in the top 5 in 10 of the 12 areas and was the leader in 4 of the categories (Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials, Autonomous Systems, Quantum Systems). It was followed by Stanford University, which placed in the top 5 in 9 areas and led in four (Advanced Computing, Clean Energy Generation and Storage, Microelectronics and Semiconductors, and Networked Sensing). UC Berkeley achieved a top 5 ranking in 7 of the 12 areas.
The University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Purdue University, and UCLA also ranked among the top 5 institutions in 4 or more of the CETs. The University of Wisconsin ranked first in Biotechnology dissertations. UCLA led in Communications and Networking. Purdue claimed the top spot in Data Privacy and Cybersecurity. The University of Colorado-Boulder was first in Space Technology.
In addition, they considered PhDs conducted on artificial intelligence topics as a separate category.
For dissertations on AI, the top ten institutions, in order, were: Stanford University, MIT, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Maryland-College Park, Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Washington, UCLA, the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois.
It is important to recognize that these rankings were limited to institutions included in the ProQuest dataset. Therefore, universities that stopped reporting their dissertations to that data base at some point are undercounted. Georgia Tech is an example of an institution whose rankings are likely underestimated for this reason.
Federal Research Support Is Crucial
The researchers also found that the federal government has historically been by far the largest sponsor of STEM PhD training both historically and currently.
In 2022, roughly 50% of the PhDs in the sample acknowledged in their dissertations that they had received some type of support. Federal agencies were by far the most common funders, supporting 42% of the graduates. Roughly 15% were supported by non-profit organizations, and 10% by private companies.
The funding patterns have changed over time. Federal support for STEM dissertations peaked in 1967 at 52.5%, before declining in the 1970s, and stabilizing in the 1980s. It has increased modestly since 2000.
The four largest federal sponsors are the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy. Individually, 12 different federal agencies have each supported more dissertations than the largest private company (Intel) or non-profit organization (the Howard Hughes Medical Institute).
The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health were each acknowledged by more PhD graduates than all the sponsors in the entire commercial sector combined.
Although this pattern of government dominance was found for most universities and STEM fields, there were some between-field variations. For example, astronomy and astrophysics dissertations rely heavily on government support, while those in pharmaceutical science and automotive engineering receive more industry funding. In subjects like geology and materials science, support was provided by both sectors.
Of course, some dissertation writers may have neglected to credit their funding source, and some universities no longer participate in ProQuest, introducing the risk of some undercounting. However, the authors contend that such sources of attrition are modest, leading them to conclude that “U.S. scientific training, and in turn the future scientific workforce, is heavily underwritten by the U.S. government.”
The study confirms the central role played by federal funding in supporting STEM doctoral research, a finding that comes as the Trump administration is freezing and cancelling billions of dollars in government funding across a broad swath of scientific areas.
Those cutbacks have led to calls for increased support from private business and foundations, but the magnitude of federal funding in nearly all science and engineering fields dwarfs that received from nonfederal sources, making it highly unlikely that nonfederal subsidies could ever become a viable option for adequate funding of STEM doctoral research.
As Shvadron told me, “the U.S. science and innovation ecosystem relies on a complex network of funders, with the federal government playing a central role. That role is unlikely to be replaced by other sources of funding.”
In addition, even if private and non-profit funders were to increase their support in response to government cuts, their priorities would likely differ, shifting the scope and focus of graduate training. “As government support declines, we should expect a reduction in the number of STEM graduate students trained in the U.S. Unfortunately, the full implications of such cuts will only become apparent over the long run,” Shvadron added.
