State Government Agencies’ Expenditures for R&D Total $3.0 Billion in FY 2023, an Increase of 14% from FY 2022

All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico participated in the FY 2023 survey; 578 of the 589 surveyed agencies responded. Puerto Rico is not included in the U.S. total due to its classification as a U.S. territory. Data for the FY 2023 survey were collected for NCSES by the Census Bureau under an interagency agreement.

For most states, the fiscal year begins on 1 July and ends the following 30 June. For example, FY 2023 begins on 1 July 2022 and ends on 30 June 2023. There are, however, five exceptions to the 30 June fiscal year end: New York (ends 31 March); Texas (ends 31 August); and Alabama, Michigan, and the District of Columbia (all end 30 September).Data presented in this InfoBrief are for each of the respective fiscal year periods as defined by the states.

Terms such as state, state government, and state agencies have equivalent meaning and are used interchangeably throughout this InfoBrief. The amounts reported here are for R&D expenditures of state government departments, agencies, public authorities, commissions, and other dependent entities that operate separately or somewhat autonomously from the central state government. State government R&D totals can display considerable volatility between survey years due to several national and state-specific factors. Large changes are not unusual, especially for discretionary spending items such as R&D. R&D plant expenditures can be highly variable year to year and will increase or decrease as capital projects begin or end.

Amounts reported do not include direct appropriations from state legislatures to universities, colleges, and private organizations. As a result, the $1.2 billion in FY 2023 expenditures reported by state agencies to support R&D performance by higher education institutions differs from the figure reported by universities and colleges in the NCSES Higher Education R&D Survey for R&D expenditures funded by state and local government sources because the latter includes direct state appropriations.

Although this survey is a census of state government agencies that fund R&D and there is no sampling error, survey data are still subject to some degree of unmeasurable nonsampling error, which may include errors in classification or measurement of certain aspects of an agency's R&D. For additional information see the Survey Quality Measures within the "Technical Notes" of the survey.^​

State- and agency-specific data not available in this InfoBrief are available in the full set of data tables from this survey at https://ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/state-government-research-development/2023#data. For more information, please contact the survey manager.

NCSES has reviewed this product for unauthorized disclosure of confidential information and approved its release (NCSES-DRN24-047).