What do the University of Florida, Purdue, Iowa State, Michigan State, and Virginia Tech all have in common? Yes, they are all land-grant universities. They also comprise a subset of our 22 peer institutions. And, perhaps surprising to some, they also all fall below WSU in research productivity, as measured by total research and development expenditures per tenure-track faculty!
Provided below is a summary showing that WSU ranks 6th among its peer group in this measure of research productivity, calculated using 2017 data. While an imperfect measure, tenured and tenure-track faculty is the best available proxy for comparing research faculty across universities.
This is a tremendous accomplishment of our research faculty and those supporting their activities. Pound-for-pound our faculty are competing with the most prestigious research universities in America, some that are included in the list of top-25 public universities. We rank 49th among public universities in the total research and development expenditures (a Drive-to-25 metric); however, that lower ranking is largely due to our smaller faculty size, and certainly not the productivity of the faculty we have.
Congratulations and thank you to everyone who makes contributions to our research enterprise. This is a point of pride for Washington State University.
