Chapter 8
Federal Research and Development
in Delaware
• Approximately $60 million of federal R&D funds are spent each year in
Delaware.
• Delaware ranks 47th among the 50 states, District of Columbia, and
Puerto Rico in terms of the amount of federal R&D dollars received annually.
• Approximately 5 percent of all federal funds spent in Delaware each year
on matters other than the direct support of individuals (i.e., such entitlements as retirement, disability, and housing assistance) is spent on
R&D.
HHS
~$7 million
– Project grants
DOD
~$17 million
– R&D contracts
– Project grants
Other
~$4 million
– DOI, EPA, etc.
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NASA
~$3 million
– R&D contracts
– Project grants
DOE
~$2 million
– R&D contracts
– Project grants
– Cooperative agreements
NSF
~$11 million
– Project grants
– Cooperative agreements
USDA
~$5 million
– Beneficial Insects
Introduction Research Lab
– Project grants
DOC
~$6 million
DOT
~$5 million
– R&D contracts
– Project grants
– Cooperative agreements
– R&D contracts
– Project grants
Figure 8.1 – Sources of Federal R&D Dollars Spent in Delaware
(Total Federal R&D ~$60 million)
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DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION
Background
In recent years, the federal government has spent in the neighborhood of $60 million annually in Delaware on research and development (R&D) activities. On average, federal R&D dollars account for
approximately 5 percent of all federal funds spent in Delaware each
year on matters other than the direct support of individuals (i.e., such
entitlements as retirement, disability, and housing assistance).
Most major federal agencies that currently support federal R&D
efforts provide funding for R&D activities in Delaware. Foremost
among these agencies are the Department of Defense (DOD) and the
National Science Foundation (NSF), which account for 29 and 18
percent of all federal R&D dollars spent in the state, respectively.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Commerce (DOC) account for an additional 11 percent
each of all federal R&D dollars spent in Delaware. The Department of
Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT)
each account for an additional 8 percent, while the remaining federal
R&D dollars come collectively from the Department of Energy (DOE),
the Department of Interior (DOI), the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), and several other federal agencies.8
All federal R&D dollars spent in Delaware either cover the costs of
operating federal R&D units in the state, including paying the salaries
of federal R&D personnel working at these units, or are awarded as
grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to entities in the state. The
following is an overview of what becomes of these federal R&D dollars
once they arrive in Delaware.
Federal R&D Units in Delaware
Dover, Delaware, is home to DOI’s Delaware District Office of Water
Resources.
• The Delaware District Office of Water Resources is a unit of
DOI’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). It oversees the R&D ac8 For
a complete agency-by-agency breakdown of these R&D dollars, see Appendix C.
FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN DELAWARE 109
tivities of USGS’s National Water-Quality Assessment
(NAWQA) and Federal State Cooperatives programs. The
NAWQA program conducts research on the nation’s surface and
groundwater resources to better understand the effect of pesticides, erosion, and bacterial contamination on water quality.
The Federal State Cooperatives program studies the effects of
agricultural chemicals, floods, droughts, and waste disposal on
water supply and groundwater quality. This federal unit annually receives approximately $75,000 in federal R&D funds.
Newark, Delaware, is home to USDA’s Beneficial Insects Introduction
Research Laboratory.
• The Beneficial Insects Introduction Research Laboratory is a unit
of USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) located on the
campus of the University of Delaware. It conducts research on
exotic natural enemies (parasites and predators) of insect pests
using classical biological approaches. Specific research activities
of this laboratory focus on investigating, modeling, and predicting the interactions of pest and beneficial species. An example of the research done at this site include studies of the alfalfa
weevil, once considered the primary pest of alfalfa in the United
States, which is now controlled by several introduced parasites
in the 13 New England and Middle Atlantic states. This federal
R&D unit annually receives approximately $1.4 million of federal R&D funds and has about 14 FTEs.
Federal R&D Grants to Delaware Entities
Every major institution of higher education in Delaware is the recipient of significant federal R&D dollars each year through grants
made by federal agencies to faculty, graduate students, and research
centers. The vast majority of the R&D grants are made by NSF,
HHS, and DOD to individual faculty members and therefore ultimately inure to the benefit of such institutions as the University of
Delaware and Delaware State University (DSU). The table below
shows the number of R&D grants active in FY 1998, highlighting those
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DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION
made by NSF, HHS, and DOD to parties at these institutions and estimates of the total dollars transferred to them in FY 1998 pursuant to
the terms of these grants. Among the grants in the “Other Agencies”
category going to University of Delaware are ones from USDA ($2 million), EPA ($2 million), and $1 million each from DOC, NASA, and
DOE. Nearly all of the comparable grants going to DSU are from
USDA.
Table 8.1 – Sources of Federal R&D Grants to Higher Education in Delaware
NSF
Institution
U of Delaware
DSU
Other
Total
HHS
Other
Agencies
DOD
Total
Amount
#
Amount
#
Amount
#
Amount
#
Amount
#
$9M
<$1M
0
152
1
0
$6M
<$1M
0
35
4
0
$3M
$1M
0
29
12
0
$7M
$1M
<$1M
115
13
1
$25M
$2M
<$1M
331
30
1
$9M
153
$6M
39
$4M
41
$8M
129
$27M
362
These activities are particularly significant because they fund much
of the “basic research” so critical to expanding our knowledge and understanding of fundamental scientific phenomena. In addition, these
funds account for a substantial portion of the dollars available each
year to various academic departments within these institutions.
Several other nonacademic institutions in Delaware also receive a
significant amount of federal R&D grants each year. Foremost among
these institutions that received R&D grants in FY 1998 are Bartol Research Institute in Newark ($3 million) and Wilmington Medical Center ($500,000).
Scattered among these grants, as well as among the contracts discussed in the section below, are small business innovative research
(SBIR) awards. These are special awards made by the SBIR programs
supported by the 10 federal agencies with annual budgets for extramural R&D of more than $100 million. In a recent year, small businesses in Delaware received nine SBIR awards totaling close to $1 million. Examples include an award for $225,000 from EPA to Compact
FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN DELAWARE 111
Membrane Systems, Inc., in Wilmington for work on reducing
NOx/hydrocarbon emissions via oxygen enriched lean burn engines
and an award for $70,000 from DOD (Ballistic Missile Defense Organization) to Elsicon, Inc., in Wilmington to develop an ultrahighspeed demultiplexer for optical communications systems.
Also included among these grants are formula grants from federal
agencies. Formula grants differ from the much more common project
grants in that the money transmitted through formula grants is allocated to a state or one of its subdivisions in accordance with a distribution formula prescribed by law or regulation. Among the formula
grants benefiting Delaware are ones valued at more than $1.7 million
from USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension
Service (CSREES) to State Agricultural Experiment Stations, forestry
schools, and veterinary colleges for the support of research in agriculture, forestry, and animal health and disease. Similarly, a modest formula grant goes from DOI’s USGS to the Water Resources Research Institute in Delaware every year to foster research in water and
water-related problems.
Other Federal R&D Activities in Delaware
Several entities in Delaware also receive notable sums in the form
of contracts or cooperative agreements from federal agencies for specific R&D efforts. The majority of these funds go to DuPont (a portion
of which is now a subsidiary of AlliedSignal Co.), which in FY 1998 received close to $3 million from R&D contracts. These funds supported
such efforts as the development of advanced hot gas filters for application in PFBC and IGCC power generation systems for DOE and ceramic composite components for turbine engine applications for DOD.
In addition, Alloy Surfaces Co. ($1 million), Astropower, Inc. ($1 million), and ILC Dover, Inc. ($1 million), received significant R&D contracts from federal agencies in FY 1998. Note that these amounts are
in addition to any federal R&D grants also received by these companies. The University of Delaware ($2 million) also received contracts
in FY 1998 from various federal agencies to conduct R&D for the federal government. Although this amount is notable, it does not come
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close to eclipsing the funds that this institution receives from federal
R&D grants.
A total of $2 million of federal R&D dollars was also received in
FY 1998 by entities located in Delaware in the form of cooperative
agreements. The largest of these cooperative agreements ($1 million in
FY 1998) came from DOE to DuPont in Newark to fund the Continuous Fiber Ceramic Composites (CFCC) program. Other federal
agencies awarding cooperative agreements to Delaware-based entities
include DOC and USDA.