NDSU research enterprise activities hit record highs

NDSU’s research enterprise has marked another year of growth in capital spent on research. Research expenditures (the funds spent conducting research) for the institution grew to an all-time high of $190,332,000 for the 2023 fiscal year, the most recently reported statistics.

The $190.3 million in expenditures leads 

all research university performance in the state, is a 9% increase year-over-year from the previous year’s total of $174,903,000 and is the fifth year in a row of increased expenditures for NDSU. These all denote a healthy and growing research enterprise at the institution.

NDSU continues to receive strong support from federal funding agencies. The amount of overall federal funding expenditures increased by 19% with notable increases for the USDA at 21%, Department of Defense at 76%, Department of Energy at 37%, and the National Science Foundation at 21%.

Similarly, research expenditures from commodity groups experienced a 2% increase over the previous year while non-profit and foundation groups expenditures rose 14%.

NDSU Vice President for Research and Creative Activities Colleen Fitzgerald noted the importance of the latest expenditures amount. 

"Expenditures are an important metric of the level of research activity occurring at a university and our researchers are landing bigger competitive awards from various sources including federal, state, and private companies,” Fitzgerald said. “NDSU’s researchers solve the big challenges that face North Dakota, which are actually global grand challenges, and show the tremendous success that happens, enabling our faculty and research staff to compete on a national level with other R1-level research institutions."

NDSU is one of only 146 institutions in the country with the R1 designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education R1 ranking. The prestigious R1 status denotes a doctoral university with very high research activity.