Something Missing in the Numbers
In “Fully Accounting for America’s Research Investments” (Issues, Winter 2026), Nicholas S. Wigginton has done the field a genuine service by documenting the systemic underreporting of university investments in the nation’s research enterprise. The data are impressive and the call for better measurement is long overdue. But there is something missing in the numbers.
When Vannevar Bush laid out the federal-university research partnership in the 1945 report Science, the Endless Frontier, the organizing principle was more about what the country needed and who could best fill the need, rather than who should pay for what. Bush recognized that basic research and discovery are public goods, and that independent universities with deep commitment to training would be the right place for investment. He intended federal investment in the institutional conditions that make discovery possible, with universities as stewards of a precious national resource, not as passive recipients.
Over time, this federal investment was so incredibly successful in stimulating discovery, and science progressed so rapidly, that the costs to support cutting-edge technology and facilities outpaced federal investment, requiring even greater investments from institutions themselves. At the same time, regulatory burdens rose steeply, adding real costs to university operations, most of them unreimbursed, and all of them necessary to maintain the federal partnership.
The costs to support cutting-edge technology and facilities outpaced federal investment, requiring even greater investments from institutions themselves.
Public universities, like my own institution, play a distinctive role in this balance of investment. Public universities are answerable to legislatures, taxpayers, and the communities we serve, with a demand (and commitment) for transparency and accountability. This accountability and transparency make public universities an exemplar of what Bush envisioned: institutions whose research mission is inseparable from a broader obligation to the public good. They anchor their regional innovation ecosystems, train the workforce that remains in the state, and support the extension services and health care that reaches rural communities. This takes significant institutional investment, which in combination with the obligation to provide affordable tuition results in significantly thin margins. Yet the reported accounting misses this full investment.
Wigginton’s call for reform of the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey is spot on. Improved methodologies would shed greater light on the institutional investment in America’s research ecosystem. The Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) model he describes is another example of the reform needed. The transparency of the model clarifies the costs of the partnership between the federal government and the nation’s institutions. With the FAIR model and much-needed reform to how the federal government accounts for and reimburses the true cost of research, we have a genuine opportunity to modernize the compact Bush envisioned. Not by doing away with it, but by finally building the financial transparency and accountability that will sustain the partnership and continue America’s scientific dominance.
With reform to the HERD Survey and the reimbursement system for facilities and administrative costs, it will become clear that universities have been holding up their end and then some. The question now is whether the federal government will hold up its end, not in a transactional sense but as a partner in the compact that has defined American scientific leadership.
Penny Gordon-Larsen
W. R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished
Professor
Vice Chancellor for Research
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
Nicholas Wigginton makes a compelling case that the financial contributions of universities to the US research enterprise are at best not well understood and at worst systematically undervalued, perhaps drastically so, in national accounting. The matter merits attention from the university research community and policymakers.
Wigginton’s fundamental point is that universities that receive public funds to support research should be transparent not only about their use, but also the extent of their institutional contributions. The problematic truth is that the nation’s primary measurement system for research activity, the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey, provides an uneven and murky picture of these internal contributions. He cites inconsistencies that make one wonder whether seemingly comparable institutions invest substantially differently or, alternatively, have different methods of reporting their contributions.
Universities that receive public funds to support research should be transparent not only about their use, but also the extent of their institutional contributions.
Whether it’s one or another matters a lot. HERD is considered a gold standard for tracking research activity, and its data affect not only institutional rankings but also inform the views of policymakers about the value of university of research and the cost of the research itself. Wigginton claims that underreporting of university contributions may total billions. This changes the picture from the government paying for university research to the research enterprise being a true financial partnership among universities that have the capability to invest. Greater transparency would also clarify the challenges of sustaining programs in under-resourced institutions and in building capacity among emerging aspirants.
The author’ s articulation of what remains unaccounted for highlights unrecovered indirect costs, faculty research time, capital investments in research facilities, and graduate student support. Indirect costs are frequently maligned for their opacity, and though they are audited and therefore legitimate, have motivated a drive to change, notably by the Joint Associations Group’s Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) model that would involve more direct charging among other changes.
Improved transparency will force difficult conversations about sustainability. If federal research funding declines while universities continue investing substantially, something will have to give—either the amount of research or other institutional investments would need to be scaled back, or universities would need to pursue additional revenue streams. Fundraising will take on an even larger role than at present.
Ultimately, Wittington makes a case not for special pleading but rather for clarity in messaging the true cost of research. The research enterprise’s actual funding structure, with universities as substantial co-investors alongside federal agencies, should be visible in our measured systems and reflected in public understanding. The author proposes a fix at the enterprise level to establish consistent, comprehensible reporting standards that would hopefully be implemented without increasing the already daunting administrative burden associated with US research.
Maria T. Zuber
E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics
Presidential Advisor for Science and Technology Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology