Impact of US Economic Crises on University Research and Development Investments

Universities are a well-known source of innovation that provides educated human resources, a scientific infrastructure, and their own research and development (R&D) capacity. In this way, they supply considerable and varied input to the economic environment. Yet the impacts of economic crises on university R&D are not discussed in the literature. This paper explores the impacts of the last seven economic crises in the USA on university R&D investments. Changes in industrial, government, and institutional funding during these economic crises are analyzed. Findings show an increase in government investments; however, the rest of the analyses did not show statistically significant results. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015