Federal Grant Funding for the Geosciences for the Different Disciplines and from Various Agencies in 2010

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Date updated: 2014-07-08
Data Brief 2014-007
Written and compiled by Carolyn E. Wilson for AGI, July 2014

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According to NSF’s Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development, in 2010, the federal government spent $3.3 billion on grants for basic and applied research in geoscience. The majority of this investment was spent on projects in the environmental sciences.

Nearly a quarter of federal grant support has been awarded to researchers through the National Science Foundation (NSF). However it is somewhat surprising that 15% of grant funding spent on geoscience research came from the Department of Health and Human Services. All of the funding from Health and Human Services was for environmental sciences research, with the majority of this funding distributed from the National Institutes of Health.

The major agencies granting funding for geoscience research to universities include the Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA, and NSF totaling $1.1billion. NSF distributed 63% of this funding; the Department of Defense distributed 15% of this funding; NASA distributed 11% of this funding; the Department of Energy distributed 9% of this funding, and the Department of Agriculture distributed 2% of this funding to universities.

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