4

DoD Investments and Capacity-Strengthening at Institutions of Higher Education

Over the past four decades, National Defense Authorization Acts have encouraged the participation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority institutions (MIs) in defense-related research. To examine the degree to which these institutions have been successful in competing for and executing Department of Defense (DoD) grants and contracts, the committee analyzed funding records within publicly available datasets from fiscal year (FY) 2010 through FY 2020 and deliberated on the testimonies provided by DoD program managers at the study’s public workshops.¹ The committee also examined the recent history of DoD funding to support infrastructure, programmatic structure, and commercialization and entrepreneurship efforts at HBCU/MIs as compared to other institutions of higher education.

To present the analysis, the text and data tables in this chapter are organized as follows. First, data are presented to examine DoD investments at all institutions of higher education and across different types of funding support. Analysis is then provided for two subsets of these institutions: (1) HBCU/MIs that receive the largest amount of DoD funding, and (2) institutions that are “research and development (R&D) capable” in that they have some capacity in place to carry out defense-related R&D. The chapter then shifts to a discussion of infrastructure, looking at the largest HBCU/MI performers as compared with other institutions of higher education.

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¹ The data collection and analyses described throughout this chapter may be considered the first step in a proposed long-term effort to examine the DoD funding landscape for institutions of higher education, current levels of institutional research capacity, and opportunities for partnerships and growth. Additional data analysis is needed to examine a broader set of research questions.

METHODOLOGY FOR DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

To structure its data collection process, the committee sought to gain insight on the following questions:

• What is the current level of DoD-funded and non-DoD-funded research at different types of institutions?
• Are HBCU/MIs competitive in applying for and receiving DoD R&D support, and how does their level of success in obtaining funds compare with other institutions of higher education?
• What is the potential capacity at HBCU/MIs to support their R&D activities? How does this capacity compare to that of other institutions receiving high levels of DoD support, and to what extent is this capacity underutilized at HBCU/MIs?
• If capacity is underutilized, what are potential constraints or underlying factors that have contributed to such underutilization or that might impede an increase in utilization of available capacity for R&D at HBCU/MIs?
• How does HBCU/MIs’ utilization of current research capacity impact specific R&D outputs, including capacity for commercialization and transition of research into defense acquisition, and the growth of institutional R&D enterprises?
• Based on publicly available data, are there any specific opportunities where increased investment in infrastructure, training, or support might catalyze increased capacity to compete for and execute DoD-related R&D or develop, protect, and commercialize intellectual property at HBCU/MIs?

The committee attempted to address these questions as thoroughly as possible, believing them germane to the statement of task. Data limitations and the study’s timeline constraints led to some prioritization. Although not all questions could receive a full response, they are included as potential topics for future consideration.

Sources of Data

To carry out a data-driven assessment, the committee commissioned the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Science and Technology Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization, to gather and collate relevant data and provide data analysis in response to input from the committee. (See Appendix G for more information about this analysis.) Public sources were utilized in most cases after attempts to collect data from DoD’s Office of the Secretary of Defense and military departments were insufficient to meet the committee’s needs. Specifically, the type, detail, organization, and completeness of data submissions varied greatly

across DoD, which ultimately challenged the committee’s ability to formulate and respond to its research questions. The need for more robust and consistent data collection by DoD to better assess the agency’s level of investment and measurable impact on the advancement of HBCU/MI research capacity is discussed throughout this chapter.

With the commissioned support of the Institute for Defense Analyses, the three complementary data sources accessed were USAspending.gov,² which tracks federal spending; the Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS),³ which surveys all colleges and universities that receive federal aid; and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES),⁴ which focuses on the “science and engineering enterprise” to include the scientific and engineering workforce. Readers of this report should remain mindful that the datasets presented here may not be derived from the same sources and, therefore, should resist conflating data or drawing inaccurate conclusions. To avoid these potential errors, data sources are noted throughout the chapter.

Approach to Disaggregating the Data

To coordinate the analyses of cumulative datasets, the committee separated institutions of higher education into three primary categories:⁵

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²USAspending.gov data presents a transaction-level overview of a major proportion of federal government awards (both contracts and grants) and includes information such as estimates of contract duration, name of the funding entity, and projected monetary amount. The Institute for Defense Analyses noted several limitations related to this dataset, most importantly, missing/inaccurate information and the discrepancy between data retrieval systems.

³ Institutional characteristics in IPEDS were used to consolidate recipient organization names and link its transaction dataset to other supplementary datasets. These institutional characteristics include a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number, which identifies individual business entities, as well as UNITID, an identification number for institutions of higher education that is used by several education-related organizations (e.g., Carnegie Foundation).

⁴ Several datasets from NSF were used to present information related to institutional capacity as well as to compare federal funding for different types of institutions, including the following: (1) Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) survey 2019, used to inform the total number and percentage of dollars spent on R&D by federal agencies and departments; (2) Major Research Instrumentation program records 2017–2021, used as a proxy measure for institutional capacity to bring in major scientific awards and perform the requisite research; (3) NSF institutional profiles 2011–2017, which include information on the number of R&D personnel, graduate students, and principal investigators at all surveyed institutions of higher education; and (4) Survey of Science and Engineering Research Facilities 2019, used as a measure of the size of each institution’s research facilities.

⁵ The Minority Serving Institutions Directory, based on 2020 data from the Department of Education, was used to categorize institutions of higher education.

• HBCUs
• MIs
• Other institutions of higher education

Although the committee has limited information on who these “other institutions of higher education” are, they include predominantly white institutions and other non-HBCU/MIs. “Other institutions of higher education” make up the largest share of the total number that receive DoD funding (930 of the 1,183 total) and would thus be expected to receive most of the funding. In looking at funding levels and other types of support, the committee found the aggregate numbers useful as a means of doing quick comparisons on whether a given set of resources was consistent with the relative numbers and sizes of each category.

As reviewed in earlier chapters of this report, MIs are defined as HBCUs and other institutions of higher education with at least 50 percent minority enrollment. Minority-serving institutions (MSIs) are federally designated institutions that are either historically defined or enrollment-defined with varying threshold requirements for minority enrollments (usually 25 percent) and institutional expenditures. In select analyses, the committee found it useful to isolate MSIs as a fourth category of interest. The comparative data approach underscores that research conclusions specific to MIs may not necessarily be applicable to the broader category of MSIs.

Approach to Funding Analysis

As discussed in Chapter 3, DoD allocates funds to conduct basic research (6.1), applied research (6.2), and advanced technology development (6.3) as components of its science and technology (S&T) portfolio. S&T funding, especially 6.1 funding, is the main pool of funds available to institutions of higher education to conduct research in DoD priority areas and is critically important for institutions to become top research performers, grow their research infrastructure, and build overall capacity.⁶ These funds also play a central role in the training of graduate students and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty in DoD-relevant areas, a potential resource for the DoD S&T workforce.

It is also important to recognize that certain institutions, predominately non-HBCU/MIs, maintain DoD legal entities such as university-affiliated research centers. The presence and/or connection to a DoD legal entity may provide a competitive advantage to these institutions of higher education by increasing access to funding opportunities and increasing their ability to develop R&D capacity and infrastructure. (See discussion on legal entities in Chapter 3 and Box 4-1.)

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⁶ See Chapter 3 for additional discussion on DoD’s research, development, test, and evaluatio S&T funds.

OVERVIEW OF DOD INVESTMENTS AT ALL INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Tables 4-1 through 4-5 provide a high-level view of total DoD funding at HBCU/MIs, MSIs, and other institutions of higher education between FY 2010 and FY 2020. During this period, approximately $67 billon in DoD S&T funding was awarded to 1,183 institutions of higher education (Table 4-1) through 35,670 grants and 13,316 contracts (Table 4-2). The data show that the total number of HBCU/MIs constituted roughly 13 percent of the total institutions of higher education that received funding (157 out of 1,183); however, the total amount received by these institutions was only 1.3 percent of the total.

TABLE 4-1 Total DoD Funding (in thousands of dollars) for HBCUs, Non-HBCU MIs, Non-HBCU MSIs, and Other Institutions, FY 2010 Through FY 2020

NOTES: The totals do not include institutions that reportedly received $0 or less in funding. For each cell total, if an award included both a prime awardee and subawardees, the subawardee transactions were removed to prevent inflating the cell totals. The research area was assigned based on the prime award for most transactions; it was assigned based on subaward activity only if the prime award transactions were not part of the sample.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-2 Number of Grants and Contracts Awarded to HBCUs, Non-HBCU MIs, Non-HBCU MSIs, and Other Institutions, FY 2010 Through FY 2020

NOTES: The number of contracts is based on the parent award identifier to prevent indefinite delivery vehicles (a vehicle that has been awarded to one or more vendors) from being counted multiple times. “All awards” represents the total count of awards in each category. This count is smaller than the sum of columns B through D because multiple institutions can be listed on the same award.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-3 Median DoD Award Amount for HBCUs, Non-HBCU MIs, Non-HBCU MSIs, and Other Institutions by Award Type, FY 2010 Through FY 2020

NOTES: The totals do not include institutions that reportedly received $0 or less in funding. For each cell average, if an award included both a prime awardee and subawardees, the subawardee transactions were removed to prevent inflating the cell averages.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-4 Median DoD Award Amount for HBCU, Non-HBCU MI, Non-HBCU MSI, and Other Institutions Awards Equal to or Above the 95th Percentile of Funding, by Award Type, FY 2010 Through FY 2020

NOTES: The totals do not include institutions that reportedly received $0 or less in funding. For each cell average, if an award included both a prime awardee and subawardees, the subawardee transactions were removed to prevent inflating the cell averages. The 95th percentile cut-off was calculated separately for each of the three groups: HBCU, non-HBCU MI, and non-MI.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-5 Median DoD Award Length for HBCU, Non-HBCU MI, Non-HBCU MSI, and Other Institutions by Award Type, FY 2010 Through FY 2020

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

Drilling down reveals the following:

• Of the $67 billion in total S&T funding between FY 2010 and FY 2020, only $396 million (0.6 percent) was awarded to HBCUs, and about $503 million (0.75 percent) was awarded to other MIs.
• Of the 1,183 institutions over the 11-year period, only 157 HBCU/MIs secured funding from grants or contracts, and the most common source of funding was to support S&T 6.1 basic research.
• In the 11-year span, out of 48,986 total grants and contracts awarded, 1,793 went to HBCU/MIs (3.7 percent of total awards). HBCUs received 843 and other MIs received 950 awards.
• The average amount awarded to an HBCU was $469,000 ($395 million was distributed over 843 grants or contracts), and the average amount awarded to other MIs was $529,000 ($503 million over 950 grants or contracts). In contrast, the average amount for non-HBCU/MIs was about $1.45 million ($6.2 billion over 43,055 grants or contracts). That is, the average award at an HBCU or other MI was only about one-third the size of the average received by non-HBCU/MI institutions.
• A subset of HBCU/MIs have demonstrated success in securing large DoD R&D grants and contracts (defined for the purposes of this analysis as at least $1 million). The median award size at institutions in the 95th percentile of DoD funding is $2.9 million for HBCUs and $2.5 million for other MIs. In comparison, the median award size at non-HBCU/MIs in the 95th percentile of DoD funding was $5.2 million, or roughly double the amount awarded to HBCU/MIs (Table 4-4).
• Based on median award lengths, non-HBCU/MIs secured DoD grants and contracts with 1.5 times longer performance periods than HBCU/MIs, which translates to about 360 additional days (Table 4-5).

As a reminder, in select analyses, the committee found it useful to isolate MSIs as a fourth category of interest. Tables 4-1 through 4-5 also compare funding rates at HBCU/MIs with MSIs. In the 11 years studied, 96 MSIs received a total of $3.6 billion in DoD S&T funding, compared to the 157 HBCU/MIs

that received a total of $898 million. The average award secured by an MSI was around $700,000. Thus, fewer MSIs secured more than four times the funding of HBCU/MIs. The average award at an HBCU/MI was about 71 percent of the average award at an MSI. In terms of median values for the length of awards, MSIs had approximately 1.2 times longer performance periods than HBCUs and MIs (about 161 additional days).

The reason for the discrepancy may be a combination of factors, including differences in the capacity of enrollment-based MSIs to conduct DoD-relevant research compared to HBCU/MIs, or greater institutional knowledge of the intricacies and best practices in successfully competing for DoD funds. Many of these MSIs were predominantly white institutions that received an MSI designation recently due to increased enrollment by Latinx students. Thus, these institutions may not have experienced the same historical inequities in investment as HBCU/MIs. Additional considerations of the funding of these institutions, for example, state-funded versus public land grant–funded versus privately funded institutions, may also have an impact.

In any event, while a disparity does seem to exist between HBCU/MIs and MSIs, a disproportionately large share of DoD R&D-related funding goes to institutions of higher education that are neither HBCUs, MIs, nor MSIs. Out of a total of 1,183 institutions of higher education, these 930 institutions received a total of more than $62 billion, or roughly 93 percent of total DoD R&D-related funding.

DOD R&D-FUNDED HBCU/MIS

As shown in the tables above, the vast majority of DoD R&D funding is awarded in the “other” category, to non-HBCU/MIs. However, upon closer examination of the data, a subset of HBCU/MIs emerged as institutions with demonstrated success in securing large DoD grants and contracts. In this section, the committee provides an overview analysis of the HBCU/MIs that received the highest amount of DoD funding in order to extract findings related to institutional representation across funding categories, consistency of funding across years, and expanded funding portfolios.

The tables below present DoD funding to HBCU/MIs from FY 2010 through FY 2020 through four lenses: total DoD funding (Table 4-6), basic research funding (Table 4-7), applied research funding (Table 4-8), and other funding (Table 4-9). Most of the institutions saw peaks and valleys in funding over the decade, rather than a consistent stream of awards of similar or growing value. Given the relatively smaller amounts of funding, as compared to the DoD R&D award amounts at the top-funded non-HBCU/MIs (Table 4-10), these oscillations may reflect the initiation and completion of period of performance for specific grants and contracts, which, as shown in Table 4-5, are generally shorter than those for non-HBCU/MIs. Another important consideration is support for overhead

TABLE 4-6 Annual DoD Funding Totals (in thousands of dollars) for Top-Funded HBCU and Non-HBCU MI Institutions, FY 2010–2020

NOTES: HBCUs are in bold, and other MIs are in standard font. Zeroes are included only in cells where values were reported.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-7 Annual DoD Basic R&D Funding Totals (in thousands of dollars) for Top-Funded HBCU and Non-HBCU MI Institutions, FY 2010–2020

NOTES: HBCUs are in bold, and other MIs are in standard font.

This table includes annual sums that are negative. These may be adjustments to existing grants or contracts, some of which are not present in USAspending.gov or are outside the FY 2010–2020 range. Blank cells indicate unavailable or entirely missing observations.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-8 Annual DoD Applied R&D Funding Totals (in thousands of dollars) for Top-Funded HBCU and Non-HBCU MI Institutions, FY 2010–2020

NOTES: HBCUs are in bold, and other MIs are in standard font.

This table includes annual sums that are negative. These may be adjustments to existing grants or contracts, some of which are not present in USAspending.gov or are outside the FY 2010–2020 range. Blank cells indicate unavailable or entirely missing observations; zeroes are included only in cells where values were reported.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-9 Annual DoD Other R&D Funding Totals (in thousands of dollars) for Top-Funded HBCU and Non-HBCU MI Institutions, FY 2010–2020

NOTES: HBCUs are in bold, other MIs are in standard font.

This table includes annual sums that are negative. These may be adjustments to existing grants or contracts, some of which are not present in USAspending.gov or are outside the FY 2010–2020 range. Blank cells indicate unavailable or entirely missing observations; zeroes are included only in cells where values were reported.

SOURCE: www.usaspending.gov.

TABLE 4-10 Federally Financed Higher Education R&D Expenditures and DoD-Financed R&D Expenditures (dollars in thousands), Ranked by DoD R&D Expenditures, FY 2019¹

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¹ Johns Hopkins University includes the Applied Physics Laboratory, with $1,186,143 thousand in R&D expenditures financed by DoD in FY 2019. The University of Maryland includes expenditures from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and University of Maryland, College Park, campuses. In FY 2019, the two campuses began reporting as one research unit to reflect their new strategic partnership. This relationship was codified through the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2016. Prior to FY 2019, both campuses reported to the survey as separate institutions.

SOURCE: NSF Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) survey 2019.

(indirect costs), which is essential in order to apply for and conduct research (see Box 4-2).

Looking at total DoD funding, the top MIs—New Mexico State University, Florida International University, University of Texas at San Antonio, and University of Texas at El Paso, all Hispanic-Serving Institutions—received substantially more funds, collectively, than the 10 HBCUs on the list, collectively. In FY 2019 and FY 2020, the top MIs each received an average of $5 million in total DoD awards, far higher than the funding received by all other HBCU/MIs. The top five HBCU institutions that were successful in winning DoD awards received an average of $2.3 million per year (Table 4-6).

Looking at basic research funding (Table 4-7), two MIs received the largest amount of funding (Florida International University and University of Texas at San Antonio), followed by two HBCUs (Norfolk State and Jackson State). Looking at applied research funding (Table 4-8), another ranking order is reflected, with New Mexico State University having far greater funding, followed by Morgan State, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, and North Carolina A&T, although it should be noted that total applied research funding is significantly less than basic research funding at all institutions of higher education. Looking at other R&D funding (Table 4-9), the top four schools are New Mexico State University, Florida International University, University of Texas at San Antonio, and University of Texas at El Paso.⁷

To account for the discrepancy, the committee recognizes that while HBCU/MIs face significant systemic barriers in competing for DoD funding, an institution’s commitment to innovation, R&D expansion, and alignment of its goals with DoD priorities may lead to increased R&D funding (described more fully in Chapter 5). Furthermore, many of the institutions in Tables 4-6 through 4-9 (e.g., Florida International University, University of Texas at El Paso) have prioritized

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⁷ On USAspending.gov, certain R&D-focused funded awards were not labeled as basic, applied, or other typical S&T categories. As such, Institute for Defense Analyses consultants labeled these data as “other” R&D funds.

institutional leadership with expertise in entrepreneurship, partnerships, public policy, or federal agency experience to support institutional success in winning DoD grants and contracts.

To further examine funding discrepancies across the top DoD-awarded institutions, the committee reviewed the NCSES database (NSF, 2021). In a review of the DoD R&D expenditures across institutions, glaring differences emerged:

• Average DoD R&D expenditures in the top 15 non-HBCU/MIs is 60 times the average DoD R&D expenditures in the top 15 HBCU/MIs. Notably, seven of the top 15 non-HBCU/MIs maintain DoD distinct legal entities (e.g., university-affiliated research centers), which impacts their capacity to secure and execute DoD research (see Box 4-2).
• Total DoD R&D expenditures across the top 15 HBCU/MIs in 2019 was $59 million. In contrast, the single top-receiving non-HBCU/MI (Johns Hopkins University and its university-affiliated research center, Applied Research Laboratory) received $1.2 billion.

• The 15th-ranked non-HBCU/MI in total DoD expenditures (University of Dayton and its Air Force center of excellence) received almost four times the funding of the first-ranked HBCU/MI (New Mexico State University) (see Table 4-10).

Although there are clear disparities between the level, length, and type of funding awarded to HBCU/MIs, as compared to other institutions of higher education, a few comments can be made about the success of specific HBCU/MIs in securing DoD R&D grants and contracts. First, the committee’s review seems to indicate an advantage to place or proximity of an institution to a DoD R&D center, including DoD laboratories. For example, New Mexico State University’s proximity to White Sands Missile Range seems to account for its advantage in securing DoD funds, particularly in applied research (Table 4-8) and other funding (Table 4-9). Similarly, Prairie View A&M is geographically located close to its sponsoring command, Air Force Research Laboratory. On the other hand, Penn State University and Georgia Tech Research Institute are two of the highest and most consistently DoD-funded research institutions, but likely due to a lack of mutually beneficial partnerships, there are no Pennsylvania- or Georgia-based HBCU/MIs represented in the top lists of DoD funding. (See Appendix F for maps of DoD research centers and HBCU/MIs.)

Additionally, the committee notes that where Tribal Colleges and Universities have been successful in obtaining DoD research funding, this has come from the development of strong partnerships; in most cases, these institutions are also located in proximity to a DoD lab or another entity. For example, Navajo Technical University in New Mexico has received funds from the Army Research Laboratory. This proximity has helped to build Navajo Tech’s research capacity, provide funding for research, and provide support for students. In consideration of these findings, there may be additional opportunities for DoD to strategically examine and leverage relationships between its R&D centers and HBCU/MIs that are located in close geographic proximity.

APPROACHES TO ADDRESS FUNDING DISPARITIES

In light of the stark funding discrepancies between the top DoD R&D-funded HBCU/MIs and non-HBCU/MIs, the committee considered potential methods and means to address the funding delta between these two categories of institutions. As one strategic approach, the committee focused on HBCU/MIs that

have the greatest potential interest and capacity to work with DoD. This approach involved examining a subset of HBCU/MIs that can be considered “R&D capable.” Using 2019 data from the NCSES, the committee defined as “R&D capable” those institutions receiving some (any) DoD R&D funding and with at least one principal investigator and one graduate student associated with an R&D contract or grant. Out of the 490 institutions identified as R&D capable, 38 (7.7 percent) were HBCUs and 28 (5.7 percent) were MIs.

Another approach to identify R&D-capable institutions was to use USAspending.gov data to review all institutions that received DoD R&D funds between FY 2010 and FY 2020 (see Appendix H for data used to assess R&D-capable institutions). Of the 1,240 institutions identified in USAspending.gov, 65 (5.2 percent) were HBCUs and 96 (7.7 percent) were MIs. Although these two strategic approaches used different datasets and timelines, together they helped to create a snapshot of institutional capacity to serve as DoD performers. Using this snapshot of R&D-capable HBCU/MIs can serve to assess current levels of capacity, aspects of disparities between funding or capacity, and opportunities to expand research capabilities.⁸

An additional way to view the potential to expand the opportunities for HBCU/MIs to carry out DoD research is to compare DoD funding to these institutions with that of other federal agencies (Table 4-11). Based on data from the NSF Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey, DoD lags in the relative percentage of funding awarded to HBCU/MIs compared with their total R&D funding; their funding from other “mission-focused” agencies (e.g., National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Department of Energy), and their funding, in both relative and absolute terms, from NSF, Department of Energy; and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. For example, funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to HBCU/MIs is nearly double than what DoD directs to these institutions. These disparities may indicate that DoD is not taking advantage of existing capacity at R&D-capable HBCU/MIs, despite repeated direction from Congress to do so. Targeted efforts to close these funding gaps would strengthen HBCU/MIs’ capacity for defense-related research while allowing DoD greater access to the R&D talent available at these institutions.

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⁸ For context, using data from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, there are a total of 6,063 U.S. institutions of higher education, including 100 HBCUs, 386 MIs, 318 MSIs, and 5,259 others.

TABLE 4-11 Federal R&D Funding at Institutions of Higher Education in the United States, FY 2019

SOURCE: Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey (data from 2019).

CAPACITY AT HBCU/MIS

In addition to funding active research endeavors, the broad spectrum of HBCU/MI engagement in defense research opportunities can be supported through strategic investments in infrastructure (including laboratories, physical facilities), personnel and administrative support, programmatic support and design (e.g., reduction of faculty teaching loads, training in DoD grants/contracts, incentives to conduct DoD-related research), and commercialization and entrepreneurship efforts. These are the elements that constitute the committee’s framework of a university infrastructure conducive to high research capacities (see Chapter 1 and, for further discussion, Chapter 5).

Infrastructure

Research infrastructure, such as laboratory space, physical facilities, and equipment, is a critical component of institutions’ capacity to engage in research,

particularly DoD S&T research. Without access to the most up-to-date equipment, instrumentation, and other infrastructure, HBCU/MIs cannot be as competitive as many other institutions for DoD research opportunities. Leveraging a certain level of investments allows an institution to enhance its competitiveness to secure longer or larger grants and contracts. Additional details in the types of federal capacity-building support and anecdotal reports of best practices and current challenges can be found in Chapters 3 and 5, respectively.

The committee attempted to examine facility space at HBCU/MIs as a measure of current infrastructure capacity but found that the publicly available data on USAspending.gov were not sufficient to draw conclusions. A key limitation was lack of consistency about what institutions report as facility space. For example, some institutions report dormitories or auditorium space as part of this category, and not just research facility space. (Available data on facility space can be found in Appendix J.) The committee notes that facility space may also include sea space, airspace, air rights, access to energy, water, dark sky, isolation, etc.

It must be considered, in any event, that facility space is not a perfect measure of infrastructure capacity. The committee noted that when interviewing leaders from universities that transitioned from R2 to R1 at the public workshops, the most common reason given for improved research performance was acquisition of state-of-the-art instrumentation and equipment.^9,10

The committee also noted that funding to HBCU/MIs has been intermittent, even at the top DoD R&D-funded institutions (see, e.g., Tables 4-6 through 4-8 above). However, intermittent funding demonstrates that these universities have unused capacity available to DoD if these institutions can be supported. The committee also identified a high correlation between infrastructure funding and securing awards for research projects. Greater and more strategic infrastructure funding support, based on the unique needs of the institution, will provide institutions with more opportunities to successfully compete for funding.

Equipment and Technologies

Based on a review of the publicly available databases and testimonies from panelists at the committee’s public workshops, better-resourced institutions (institutions that have a better record in acquiring and maintaining important equipment to execute defense research) are more competitive in their efforts to secure defense research opportunities. As relevant examples, for an electronics laboratory, owning or having access to equipment such as digital oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, high-performance computational equipment, and advanced visualization hardware and software is required for many areas of defense research and is

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⁹ See https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/defense-research-at-historically-black-colleges-and-universities-and-other-minority-serving-institutions.

¹⁰ See https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/ for Carnegie Classification categories, as well as the discussion in Chapter 2.

a necessary step to gain research funding. These resources can be shared among various departments and users across the university’s academic environment, but without these resources, it would be difficult to compete to receive research contracts, particularly those outside of S&T basic research.

To examine DoD investments in institutional research infrastructure, the committee assessed funding data for three DoD programs with an established focus on supporting institutional infrastructure, two that are open opportunities for all institutions, the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) and the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), and one much smaller and targeted funding opportunity exclusively for HBCU/MIs.¹¹ Based on data collected from USAspending.gov, the committee examined funding totals for FY 2010 through FY 2020 on the total MURI, DURIP, and other funding for HBCUs, other MIs, MSIs, and other non-HBCU/MIs (see Table 4-12).

HBCUs, which represent approximately 3 percent of all four-year nonprofit colleges and universities in the United States, receive less than 1 percent share of the total funding directed to DoD-funded institutions. Given the critical role of infrastructure development to research capacity and execution of DoD-related grants and contracts, increased attention to and investments in HBCU/MIs R&D infrastructure can strengthen their competitiveness. For example, DURIP and MURI awards targeted toward HBCU/MIs could be provided at a reasonably significant level for a more prolonged period.

Personnel and Administrative Support

Another key factor in assessing an institution’s capacity to carry out research activities is the amount of time and support available to identify research opportunities, submit proposals, and execute the research. Other critical factors include the teaching load at the university (and the ability of faculty to “buy out”

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¹¹ MURI is a DoD-wide program that supports research teams whose research efforts intersect more than one traditional science and engineering discipline. MURI can be funded by any participating defense agency to support high-priority research, including equipment and infrastructure (DoD, 2020a). DURIP supports university research infrastructure essential to high-quality Navy-relevant research. DURIP funds are used for the acquisition of major equipment to augment current or develop new research capabilities in support of DoD-relevant research. The HBCU-MSI program is a targeted opportunity issued by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (DoD, 2020b). The purpose of the HBCU/MI Program is to (1) increase the research and educational capacity of HBCU/MIs; and (2) to foster workforce diversity and entry of underrepresented minorities into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines important to national defense (DoD, 2021b).

TABLE 4-12 Total MURI/DURIP/HBCU-MI Funding by Institution Type (in thousands of dollars)

NOTES: Publicly available information on MURI (https://media.defense.gov/2020/Mar/02/2002257694/-1/-1/1/FY2020-MURI-AWARD-WINNERS.PDF) and DURIP (https://media.defense.gov/2020/Dec/01/2002543787/-1/-1/0/FY21-DURIP-SELECTIONS-FOR-PRESS-RELEASEFINAL-20-NOV.PDF) awards was collated with DoD-provided information on HBCU-MSI awards. The transaction dataset from USAspending.gov did not include an identifier for MURI, DURIP, or HBCU-MSI research awards. Instead, these awards were identified by scanning the project description of each award for the three award acronyms. However, the number and total monetary amount of the awards was not consistent with external sources, so the figures obtained from the transaction dataset provide a limited estimate of the actual figures.

The totals do not include institutions that reportedly received $0 or less in funding. For each cell total, if an award included both a prime awardee and subawardees, the subawardee transactions were removed to prevent inflating the cell totals. Blank cells indicate unavailable or entirely missing observations; zeroes are included only in cells where values were reported. MURI/DURIP/HBCU-MI awards shown in this table are only those found in USAspending.gov, which represents a portion of the actually awarded grants in the FY 2010–2020 timespan. “Other grants” consists of all grants in USAspending.gov that did not match the MURI/DURIP/HBCU-MI search terms for DoD-funded institutions of higher education during FY 2010–2020. SOURCE: www.USAspending.gov.

of teaching if research support is available) and the amount of administrative support. Administrative support includes direct support to faculty for carrying out administrative activities (e.g., scheduling, travel, purchasing), grant management (budget preparation, expense tracking, reporting, legal review), and technology transfer (patent disclosures, licensing).

The committee was unable to find direct data to determine how these types of support vary between universities, since many of these numbers are not reported and/or are not available in a centralized database such as IPEDS or Higher Education Research and Development survey (HERD). Information on overhead rates, as discussed in Box 4-2, illustrates discrepancies that can impact research performance and competitiveness. The committee did obtain limited data on teaching loads based on focus group interviews with a select number of HBCU/MIs (see Chapter 5 for more discussion about this issue). Of those institutions that responded, a majority of faculty reported carrying between three and four

courses or 12 credit hours per semester. Despite a lack of data on teaching loads, the committee acknowledges that there are models of grants and programs that allow faculty to buy out teaching or reduce teaching loads so that they can spend time on impactful research-related activities, such as planning, writing proposals, and connecting with labs and program managers. DoD developing a similar model of grants and programs targeted to HBCU/MIs may be useful in further supporting faculty in this capacity.

Programmatic Support, Structure, and Design

Another key indicator of research capacity is an institution’s programmatic structure and design. The numbers of full-time graduate research students, R&D support personnel, and principal investigators provide indicators about the capacity to carry out DoD research. Based on committee expertise and testimonies from panelists at National Academies public meetings, research productivity is lower when an academic institution is challenged with insufficient infrastructure to manage grant awards, high faculty teaching loads, and the lack of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.¹²

Furthermore, the ratio of graduate students to faculty actively doing research is an indicator of the potential for an academic institution to perform research (Fisher, 2009; Hearn et al., 2006; Litwin, 2009; Neuman and Terosky, 2007; Romainville, 1996). To assess programmatic capacity, the committee, based on the Institute for Defense Analyses’ analysis of public databases, examined the number of graduate students, R&D staff, and principal investigators at HBCU/MIs and compared these institutions with non-HBCU/MIs with roughly similar expenditure levels. Additional R&D information was obtained from NSF’s institutional profiles, which are based on surveys such as the Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering and the Higher Education and R&D Survey (HERD).

The committee reviewed the number of principal investigators and number of graduate students as proxies for available capacity. For example, focusing on the number of principal investigators as the primary measure, HBCU/MIs represent approximately 5.5 percent of total R&D capacity, with other MSIs representing an additional 12 percent. In examining the number of graduate students at R&D-capable institutions, 1.1 percent of the total were at HBCUs, nearly 5 percent were at MIs, and 14 percent were at MSIs, as compared to the remaining 80 percent at other institutions.

Unlike in the earlier tables, Table 4-13 focuses only on HBCUs that are among the top DoD-funded HBCUs and span the Carnegie classifications of R2

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¹² See https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/defense-research-at-historically-black-colleges-and-universities-and-other-minority-serving-institutions.

TABLE 4-13 Median Number of R&D Personnel and Graduate Students for the 25 HBCUs with the Highest DoD Funding

NOTES: A convenience method was used to make a comparison group for the top 25 HBCUs in DoD funding. In particular, for each level of Carnegie classification, a median value for number of R&D personnel, R&D graduate students, and the average number of R&D principal investigators was computed based on institutions in each of the second and third quartiles of the total amount of DoD funding during FY 2010 through FY 2020.

The R&D information was obtained from NSF’s institutional profiles, which are based on surveys such as the Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering and the Higher Education and R&D Survey.

Graduate student data were only available for the years 2010 to 2016 and R&D personnel and principal investigator data were only available for years 2011 through 2017 within the FY 2010–2020 timespan.

The comparison values were drawn from the second and third quartiles of the average funded award for each Carnegie category.

NSF’s Higher Education and R&D Survey defines a principal investigator as an individual “designated by your institution to direct the R&D project or program and be responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the project.” All other R&D personnel includes other employees and students paid from R&D accounts (NSF, 2021).

Blank cells indicate unavailable or entirely missing observations; zeroes are included only in cells where values were reported.

Some institutions in the baccalaureate category under the Carnegie classification system maintain graduate programs (e.g., University of the Virgin Islands). Values were rounded up to the nearest unit.

SOURCE: NSF Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) survey.

and master’s colleges and universities, larger programs.¹³ In addition to reporting the median number of full-time graduate students, R&D personnel, and principal investigators, the table compares these median values to the respective median values of the top DoD-funded non-HBCU/MIs. To avoid inappropriately comparing HBCUs with non-HBCU/MIs that maintain distinct legal entities and have greater and longer histories of DoD funding, Table 4-13 provides comparisons with the second and third quartiles, or what would be considered the median of the top-funded non-HBCU/MIs.

In summary, all R2 HBCUs have lower median values of full-time R&D graduate students and principal investigators than comparable institutions, with the exception of Florida A&M University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, both of which had higher numbers of R&D principal investigators. Among the institutions in the master’s colleges and universities, larger programs, category, Alabama A&M University and Prairie View A&M University had higher median values of full-time R&D graduate students and principal investigators than representative non-HBCU/MIs.

The focus group interviews with HBCU/MIs (see Chapter 5 for further discussion) also supported the finding that these institutions have relatively few staff supporting their research efforts. Of the 10 institutions that responded, five had five full-time equivalent staff, and three had only one staff member.

Although these data are not a direct measure of research capacity, they provide insight on potential of areas for future investment and support to bolster research programs at HBCU/MIs. In addition, these data suggest the need for further recognition of different strategies pursued by institutions for building programmatic research capacity (Fisher, 2009; Hearn et al., 2006; Litwin, 2009), such as those implemented by non-doctoral institutions, and the important role these institutions play in the DoD research arena and in preparing undergraduates for DoD-related research careers.

Commercialization and Transition of Research at HBCU/MIs

The committee examined the historical performance and the ability of HBCU/MIs to commercialize intellectual property created through research activity. It was also tasked with offering recommendations to enhance the capacity

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¹³ The Carnegie classification of R2 includes doctoral universities with high research activity. Master’s colleges and universities, larger programs, includes institutions awarding at least 200 master’s degrees.

of HBCU/MIs to move technology from research into defense acquisition, known as transitioning research.

Technology commercialization is recognized as one outcome of research productivity for institutions of higher education and serves as an indicator of their contribution to the nation’s technology and innovation economy. By definition, commercialization of technology by universities and academic research centers requires a certain level of research productivity that can result in the production of intellectual property, but also involves a licensing process that either transfers the intellectual property into an existing company or spins it out into a startup for further commercial development. Commercialization is, then, a composite process that is directly dependent upon R&D funding and productivity, generation of intellectual property, and a tech-transfer process. Ultimately the technology transfer process can lead to a transitioning of the research to the marketplace, in this case, defense acquisition programs or the like.

There are excellent examples of how major DoD investments in university R&D have significantly contributed to building university R&D infrastructure and capacity, led to the establishment of some of the world’s greatest R&D research laboratories and centers, and resulted in significant commercialization. In some instances, these investments in university R&D have helped in the formation of the world’s most productive tech-ecosystems. Some examples include the following:

• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Radiation Laboratory (RadLab) => MIT Lincoln Laboratory (one of the original federally funded research and development centers)
• Stanford University => Stanford Research Institute (SRI) => SRI International
• Stanford University => Stanford Industrial Park => Hewlett Packard
• Silicon Valley Tech-Ecosystem => Google and others
• University of California, Berkeley => Experimental Physics/Radiation Laboratory (Cyclotron) => Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• University-affiliated research centers: University of California, Santa Barbara (Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies); University of Southern California (Institute for Creative Technologies); Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech Research Institute); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies); Utah State University (Space Dynamics Laboratory); Johns Hopkins University (Applied Physics Laboratory); Pennsylvania State University (Applied Research Laboratory); University of Texas at Austin (Applied Research Laboratories); University of Washington (Applied Physics Laboratory); University of Hawaii at Manoa (Applied Research Laboratory); Stevens Institute of Technology (Systems Engineering Research Center); University of Maryland, College Park (Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security); University of Alaska Fairbanks (Geophysical Institute); University of Nebraska (National Strategic Research Institute)

Institutions of higher education that have commercialization capabilities

are able to participate and potentially benefit from federal set-aside programs that support commercialization such as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Touted as “America’s seed fund,” federal SBIR programs allocate up to 3.2 percent of the total extramural budget for agencies with greater than $100 million budget, for a total or aggregate amount of more than $3.2 billion spent per year. For the STTR program, up to 0.45 percent of the extramural budget for agencies with greater than $1 billion budgets is allocated each year, for a total amount of $450 million spent each year (GAO, 2021).¹⁴

According to a 2014 analysis of the SBIR program at DoD conducted by the National Research Council Committee on Capitalizing on Science, Technology and Innovation, only four HBCUs—Alabama A&M, Florida A&M University, Norfolk State, and Prairie View A&M—were awarded an SBIR grant between 1998 and 2007, with Alabama A&M receiving two during the analysis time period (NRC, 2014). Data are lacking on the number of SBIR grants awarded to Tribal Colleges and Universities and MIs.

However, unlike the DoD-funded university-affiliated research centers listed above (all non-HBCU/MIs), public records indicate HBCU/MIs have never been the recipients of large, long-term DoD investments that could build R&D capacity. The historical absence of any major or sustained DoD investments in S&T on HBCU/MI campuses is likely a significant factor in the persistent lack of R&D-related outputs such as intellectual property generation and commercialization. Low S&T funding and low commercialization outputs, in turn, may significantly impact the ability of HBCU/MIs to demonstrate economic value to local and regional tech and innovation ecosystems.

Strategies for further advancing commercialization efforts at HBCU/MIs were highlighted in a paper commissioned by the committee that analyzed data and assessed current commercialization efforts at 25 “research intensive/emerging research” HBCUs. Survey results indicated that all of these institutions have policies in place to protect intellectual property, but many of these policies are more than 10 years old and do not reflect current best practices among R1 universities that have robust commercialization efforts. Additionally, these “research intensive/emerging research” HBCUs typically lack the human capital dedicated to intellectual property management necessary to prosecute provisional patents and manage technology transfer. Many of the surveyed institutions conveyed that their leadership wants a robust technology commercialization ability; however, the ability to implement technology commercialization was dependent upon other divisions at the institution (e.g., human resources, finance, legal). Furthermore, the survey indicated that even among the top research-intensive HBCUs, there is very little faculty expertise in submitting STTR/SBIR applications. All of the institutions surveyed noted that they would welcome capacity-building grants in the

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¹⁴ Total amounts vary by year depending on agencies’ extramural budgets.

form of (1) personnel costs—funding additional personnel (technology commercialization expertise) to their sponsored program offices, and (2) non-personnel costs to retain intellectual property law firms for patents (McCrary, 2021).

Additionally, in focus group interviews of HBCU/MIs (see Chapter 5 for further discussion), only half of the 10 institutions surveyed have an intellectual property or technology transfer office; of those that do, only a few institutions have staff in place to support commercialization or technology transfer efforts. In fact, five of the 10 HBCU/MIs that responded have no full-time staff who could support this work, while the other institutions have between one and five full-time-equivalent staff in these roles (Essoka et al., 2021).

Taken together, the committee notes that commercialization of research requires sufficient research capacity and funding. Without these resources, HBCU/MIs are not able to take the initial steps to conduct the research that may ultimately lead to commercialization.

While the committee was tasked with developing recommendations to enhance the capacity of HBCU/MIs to transition research products into defense acquisition programs or commercialization, the evidence suggests that these institutions lack the capacity, including through lack of funding, staff, and administrative support, to develop significant commercialization programs or activities. Without this infrastructure, capacity, and funds, these institutions cannot focus on research activities that can move toward commercialization of research or ultimately support transition of this research into defense acquisition. Addressing gaps in research capacity at HBCU/MIs, including through increased funding and partnerships, will allow them to be more competitive for targeted and non-targeted national security research funding, which can then translate into opportunities to commercialize and ultimately transition research products into defense acquisition programs.

REFERENCES

Fisher, R. 2009. A framework for research at Canadian colleges. College Quarterly 12(4): 1–32. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ889560.pdf.

GAO (Government Accountability Office). 2021. Small business innovation research: Agencies need to fully implement requirements for managing fraud, waste, and abuse. Report to congressional committees. Washington, DC. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-413.pdf.

Hearn, J. C., D. R. Lewis, L. Kallsen, J. M. Holdsworth, and L. M. Jones. 2006. “Incentives for managed growth”: A case study of incentives-based planning and budgeting in a large public research university. Journal of Higher Education 77(2): 286–316. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2006.11778927.

Litwin, J. M. 2009. The efficacy of strategy in the competition for research funding in higher education. Tertiary Education and Management 15(1): 63–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/13583880802700131.

McCrary, V. 2021. Technology commercialization at historically black colleges and universities: A snapshot on the current state of the practice. Paper commissioned by the Committee on Defense Research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Other Minority Serving Institutions. https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/defense-research-at-historically-black-colleges-and-universities-and-other-minority-serving-institutions.

Neumann, A., and A. L. Terosky. 2007. To give and to receive: Recently tenured professors’ experiences of service in major research universities. Journal of Higher Education 78: 282–310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2007.0018.

NRC (National Research Council). 2014. SBIR at the Department of Defense. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/18821.

NSF (National Science Foundation). 2021. Higher education research and development: Fiscal year 2019. Alexandria, VA. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21314#general-notes&data-tables.

Romainville, M. 1996. Teaching and research at university: A difficult pairing. Higher Education Management 8: 135–144.

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