Saturday, March 05, 2011

Federal research funding for geosciences continues long term decline

AGI's latest report on the Geoscience Workforce offers depressing news that the geosciences share of research funds is on a long-term decline.

The summary for Geoscience Currents #41 says:
"The percentage of all federal funding for research and development applied to the geosciences decreased from nearly 11% in 1996 to 6% in 2007, where it has held steady ever since. The total amount of federal research funding for geoscience research steadily increased between 1970 and 2004, peaking at $3.74 billion dollars. Since 2004, funding has steadily decreased, and in 2009 total federal research funding for geoscience research was $3.35 billion dollars. Total funding for geoscience research at universities peaked in 2004 at $1.1 billion dollars and decreased to $966 million dollars in 2007."

The full report breaks down geosciences among, ocean, atmosphere, earth, climate, and environmental sciences, and show absolute funding amounts as well as the relative shares.

No comments:

Post a Comment