Research space increases at US universities

Laboratory and research space at US colleges and universities crept up nearly 17% from 2011 to 2021, to a total of 236.1 million square feet (21.9 million square meters). That’s according to a report on infrastructure use by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. In total, 584 research-performing institutions provided data about their science, engineering, and medicine departments.

Five fields accounted for nearly 84% of total science and engineering research space in fiscal year 2021. Biological and biomedical science labs took up the largest chunk, with roughly 25% of the total. The next three largest fields were engineering and health sciences, each with about 17%, and agricultural sciences, with about 14%. Physical sciences had 23.9 million square feet, roughly 10% of the total. No other field accounted for more than 4% of research space.

Universities reported breaking ground on 4 million square feet in new projects in FY 2020 and FY 2021 combined. Planning ahead, institutions anticipated spending $6.1 billion for repairs and renovations of research space through 2023; the actual data from last year are not yet available.

The report is available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23308 . It also includes data on the condition of research infrastructure and a list of the 30 institutions that boast the most research space.