ODU Shows Growth in Expenditures for R&D
The latest research and development (R&D) expenditures data released by the National Science Foundation (NSF) show that Old Dominion University attained Top 100 rankings in 13 academic areas for fiscal year 2007.
Mohammad A. Karim, the ODU vice president for research, said the university maintained its total R&D expenditures ranking of 120th among public universities and improved from 71st to 68th in total expenditures for institutions that do not have a medical school.
During the past four years, ODU has moved up to 120th from 131st in its ranking among public universities for R&D expenditures. The university's strategic plan sets a goal for ODU to break into the Top 100 among public research institutions.
The university's rankings in federal-source R&D expenditures showed relative gains in funding from NASA (50th to 47th) and the Department of Energy (116th to 110th), but slippage from the Department of Defense (67th to 80th) and NSF (127th to 136th).
ODU's ranking among public universities places it for the first time ahead of the College of William and Mary (123rd). Other state institutions that were ranked included Virginia Tech (25th), University of Virginia (51st), Virginia Commonwealth University (77th) and George Mason University (114th).
The Top 100 academic programs in total R&D expenditures at ODU are aerospace engineering (17th), business management (14th), economics (80th), education (15th) , electrical engineering (43th), engineering (84th), engineering-other (57th), humanities (26th), mathematics (81st), oceanography (40th), political science (44th), sociology (68th) and visual and performing arts (16th).
Karim noted that among those 13 programs, four are new to the Top 100 list: economics, oceanography, political science and sociology. He added that within the broad category of environmental science, ODU this year was ranked 96th in total R&D expenditures and four other ODU programs crossed the threshold to be listed this year by NSF: physics (102nd), chemistry (126th), medical science (175th) and biological sciences (190th).