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University of Minnesota reports $1.44 billion in systemwide research expenditures; urges continued investment amid federal headwinds
Summary
Interim vice president for research Joanne Billings told Regents the university recorded $1.41 billion in Twin Cities expenditures and $1.44 billion systemwide in FY2024, highlighting record commercialization metrics for FY2025 while warning that federal funding headwinds make continued investment critical.
Joanne Billings, interim vice president for research and innovation, told the Mission Fulfillment Committee that the University of Minnesota recorded $1,410,000,000 in research expenditures on the Twin Cities campus and $1,440,000,000 systemwide in fiscal year 2024.
Billings said the university remains in the top tier of public research institutions nationally and noted growth across major funding sources over the past decade — federal research up about 57 percent, state and local support up about 64 percent, and business and industry support up roughly 97 percent. She said FY2025 also showed strong sponsored-award activity, with researchers competing for about $1,220,000,000 in sponsored awards and federal awards representing roughly 54 percent of that total, with the National Institutes of Health the university's largest federal sponsor.
"This place is the Twin Cities campus twelfth among all public research universities in the country," Billings said in her presentation, adding that the ranking reflects the university's national competitiveness and its ability to "solve complex challenges at scale." She argued that a mix of funding sources makes the enterprise more resilient to year-to-year volatility.
On technology transfer and commercialization, Billings said FY2025 was a record year for the university's TechComm metrics. She said the campus ranked highly in national measures — "number 9 in U.S. patents among public universities" and "number 3 for startup creation" — and that the university launched 26 startups in FY2025, with 77 percent located in Minnesota. Over the past decade, university-founded startups have attracted roughly $3,500,000,000 in investment, she said.
Billings also highlighted community-grounded research examples, including the Memory Keepers medical-discovery team — described as work on dementia in Indigenous and rural communities — and Yord Bioscience, a St. Paul company spun out of university research focused on microbial solutions for agriculture.
Regents raised questions during the Q&A about the sustainability of federal funding and the meaning of headline commercialization figures. Regent Turner asked whether the university can sustain NIH and other federal funding levels. University staff said trends in FY2025 looked flatter and that the university is working to diversify its funding portfolio to improve resilience. President Joan G. Cunningham emphasized the national headwinds and urged sustained investment in research infrastructure and operations to maintain competitiveness.
The committee requested follow-up data comparing outcomes and investments over consistent time windows (for example, five-year windows) and additional breakdowns of commercialization metrics to clarify how headline numbers were calculated. Presenters said they would provide supplemental materials in follow-up to the committee.
The presentation concluded with Regents and university leaders noting that continued public and private investment will be required to sustain the research enterprise and that the board's support is key to maintaining the university's national standing.
