Impact
Research and economic opportunity
Research changes what a student goes on to earn. It also returns more to the public than almost anything else money can buy.
For the student
Science pays about twice as much
The median wage in science, technology, engineering, and math occupations was $103,580 in 2024. The median in all other occupations was $48,000. Employment in those occupations is projected to grow three times as fast through 2034.1
Source: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.1
Research experience is how students stay on the path into those jobs. Students who do sustained research are more likely to finish a science degree and to be working in science six years later.2
Paid experience beats unpaid experience
Students who held paid internships averaged 1.61 job offers and a median starting salary of $62,500. Students who held unpaid internships averaged 0.94 offers and $42,500.3 Turning an unpaid research position into a paid one moves a student from the second group to the first.
Exposure decides who invents
A study linked 1.2 million inventors to tax records. Children from families in the top 1 percent of income were ten times as likely to become inventors as children from families below the median. Early test scores explained little of the gap. Growing up around innovation explained much of it.4
Source: 1.2 million inventors linked to tax records.4
The authors call the children who never got that exposure "lost Einsteins."4 A lab is the most direct exposure to innovation a student can get.
Mobility is falling, and place matters
The share of American children who grow up to earn more than their parents fell from about 90 percent for those born in 1940 to about 50 percent for those born in the 1980s.5 Where a child grows up matters as well. Upward mobility varies widely across US regions, and is higher in places with less segregation, less income inequality, better schools, more community ties, and more stable families.6 A funded research position is one of the few levers that can move a single student across that map.
For everyone else
Research returns many times its cost
Two economists estimated what society gets back from spending on innovation. Under conservative assumptions, the benefits come to many times the cost.7
Health research shows up in the economy
In fiscal year 2024 the National Institutes of Health awarded $36.94 billion in research funding. That funding supported 407,782 jobs and $94.58 billion in economic activity, or $2.56 for every dollar.8
Source: $36.94 billion in awards supported 407,782 jobs and $94.58 billion in activity.8
NIH funding contributed to published research tied to every one of the 210 new drugs approved from 2010 to 2016.9 NIH funding in a research area also leads to more private-sector patents in that area.10
What this means for a gift
A gift to SRI is small next to those totals. It works at the narrowest point in the pipeline: the moment a student decides whether they can afford to say yes to a lab. Start a partnership.
Ways to help
Fund a position
Pay a summer of rent and living costs for a student who holds an unpaid research position.
Fund a paper
Cover the journal fee that stands between finished student work and a published article.
Host or mentor a student
Labs can host a funded student. Scientists at partner companies can mentor one.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Numbers, research, and discovery: STEM employment projected to take off. The Economics Daily, December 9, 2025. bls.gov
- 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
- National Association of Colleges and Employers. Position statement: U.S. internships. Reports results of the NACE 2022 Student Survey. naceweb.org
- Bell A, Chetty R, Jaravel X, Petkova N, Van Reenen J. Who becomes an inventor in America? The importance of exposure to innovation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2019;134(2):647-713. Free version: NBER Working Paper 24062. nber.org
- Chetty R, Grusky D, Hell M, Hendren N, Manduca R, Narang J. The fading American dream: trends in absolute income mobility since 1940. Science. 2017;356(6336):398-406. doi.org
- Chetty R, Hendren N, Kline P, Saez E. Where is the land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2014;129(4):1553-1623. doi.org
- Jones BF, Summers LH. A Calculation of the Social Returns to Innovation. NBER Working Paper 27863, 2020. nber.org
- United for Medical Research. NIH's Role in Sustaining the U.S. Economy, 2025 update. Fiscal year 2024 data. unitedformedicalresearch.org
- 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
- 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
Sources checked September 21, 2026. See every source we cite.
For companies and foundations
Fund a student researcher
Your gift pays for rent, a stipend, books, or a journal fee. It goes to a student who has the position and lacks the money to take it.