What a dollar of research returns

Companies that give to us sometimes ask what research is worth. Economists have tried to measure it.

To the whole economy

Benjamin Jones and Lawrence Summers estimated the social return on all spending on innovation. They netted out the ways a simple estimate overstates the return, such as firms copying each other. Their conclusion: even under conservative assumptions, the benefits come to many times the cost.¹

To health research

In fiscal year 2024 the National Institutes of Health awarded $36.94 billion to researchers in every state. That spending supported 407,782 jobs and $94.58 billion in economic activity, which works out to $2.56 for every dollar.²

That figure counts only the spending itself: salaries, supplies, and the local business they generate. It leaves out what the research discovers. NIH funding contributed to published research behind every one of the 210 new drugs approved from 2010 to 2016.³ NIH funding in a field also leads to more private-sector patents in that field.⁴

To the student

The median wage in science and engineering occupations is more than twice the median elsewhere: $103,580 against $48,000 in 2024.⁵ Students who do sustained research are more likely to finish a science degree and stay in the field.⁶

Where a small gift fits

Every researcher behind those returns once was a student deciding whether they could afford to say yes to a lab. That decision is cheap to change next to those totals. See the ways to give.

Sources

1. Jones BF, Summers LH. A Calculation of the Social Returns to Innovation. NBER Working Paper 27863, 2020. nber.org
2. United for Medical Research. NIH's Role in Sustaining the U.S. Economy, 2025 update. Fiscal year 2024 data. unitedformedicalresearch.org
3. Galkina Cleary E, Beierlein JM, Khanuja NS, McNamee LM, Ledley FD. Contribution of NIH funding to new drug approvals 2010-2016. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2018;115(10):2329-2334. doi.org
4. Azoulay P, Graff Zivin JS, Li D, Sampat BN. Public R&D investments and private-sector patenting: evidence from NIH funding rules. The Review of Economic Studies. 2019;86(1):117-152. doi.org
5. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Numbers, research, and discovery: STEM employment projected to take off. The Economics Daily, December 9, 2025. bls.gov
6. Hernandez PR, Woodcock A, Estrada M, Schultz PW. Undergraduate research experiences broaden diversity in the scientific workforce. BioScience. 2018;68(3):204-211. doi.org

Sources checked September 21, 2026. See every source we cite.