Senior technician Greg Volk sets up a sample of high-strength automotive steel for a draw bead test at the ArcelorMittal Global R&D facility in East Chicago. R&D spending in Indiana rose in 2015. Staff photo by Tony V. Marin
Research and development spending in Indiana rose to $7.6 billion in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, up from $7.3 billion in 2014, according to a new report from Indiana University's STATS Indiana.
R&D is one of the most high-end economic activities, accounting for 7 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product growth between 1995 and 2004, according to the National Science Foundation.
Though R&D spending rose in Indiana in 2015, it still fell short of the peak period between 2011 and 2013 when as much as $8 billion a year was being invested in research and development across the state, according to STATS Indiana.
Industry accounted for the bulk – about $6.2 billion or 81.6 percent – of Indiana's R&D spending in 2015, STATS Indiana reported. Universities contributed about $1.3 billion, or 17.3 percent of the total.
The Hoosier state, the 16th most populous in the union, ranked 15th in industry spending on R&D, 16th in funding for research at public universities and 20th for funding at private colleges, according to the National Science Foundation. The vast majority of funding for R&D at the state's colleges comes from the federal government and institutional sources.
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