Is UW Madison still paying a price for the Sterling Hall bombing?

[Boyo_Jim]

I had a guy in my car last week (I’m an Uber driver) who told me a great story.

He claimed to work for the Defense Department (oddly, on food and nutrition issues). He said that, Defense Department spending aside, that UW Madison was the largest institutional receiver of Federal research money in the US. And that it used to be the largest of all, including Defense spending.

Until the Sterling Hall bombing of 1970. After that, he said, the military essentially disinvested in the university, and the money has never come back. So instead of being the top recipient of Federal funds, it’s now down to the 11th or 12th because the departed Defense money is so disproportionately large compared to other spending.

Anyone have a clue if this is true, or how to determine the veracity of it?

[Telemark]

Universities Getting the Most Government Money

UW - Madison was ranked #9 in 2013

9. University of Wisconsin, Madison
   > Total federal R&D grant money: $594 million
   > Pct. R&D spending from government: 53.4%
   > 2012 endowment: $1.81 billion

The University of Wisconsin spent more than $1.1 billion on research and development in 2011, more than all but three other universities in the country. The university relied disproportionately on other sources of funding aside from the federal government compared to other schools. More than $125 million in funding came from nonprofits, more than any other university except from the University of California, San Francisco. The university also spent $220 million from its own funds, more than all but two universities in the country. Although the majority of Wisconsin’s federal R&D money came from HHS, the university also received more than $94 million from the National Science Foundation, more than all but seven schools.

Most of their money came from HHS, which is true for a lot of schools. The only schools in the to 10 where DoD money is mentioned are Stanford which got limited funds, and Johns Hopkins which got a huge amount. So DoD spending isn’t a major contributor for most schools, and it appears concentrated to just a few of them.

No idea what things were like in 1970, but the story doesn’t appear to hold up to the present day.

[Rama]

Wikipedia states that ‘‘funding for the Army Mathematics Research Center was fased out by the Deparment of Defense at the end of the 1970 fiscal year’’.

The mathematicians there also had time to work on other things so I guess they are still paying a price in a way. But the military spending seemed to be focussed on that one department.

Sterling Hall bombing

[Duckster]

As of November 2015, UW Madison ranks fourth in the nation:

The University of Wisconsin-Madison held its fourth place ranking in research expenditures among U.S. universities, despite a continuing erosion of federal and state funding, according to a new survey by the National Science Foundation.
For more than 25 years, UW-Madison has consistently ranked among the top five universities for research expenditures—money secured from all sources, federal, private and state.
In 2014, UW-Madison spent slightly more than $1.1 billion on all research, down 1.3 percent, or $1.12 billion, from the previous year, according to NSF’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey.
The College of Engineering contributed significantly to UW-Madison’s overall research grant dollars secured and its research expenditures with approximately $150 million in 2014.