Research spending benchmarking · HERD peer comparison
Know exactly where you sit in your real peer group.
A national average flatters everyone and helps no one. Strategic Pursuit lines up your research spending, your federal funding share, and how both are trending against schools that actually look like you — same research scale, same Carnegie tier (the standard way universities are grouped: R1, R2, and so on). Then it reads the picture for you: where you're ahead of the pack, where you lean too hard on one funder, and where the open opportunities are.
Built on the NSF HERD survey, IPEDS, and USAspending · peers grouped by Carnegie tier · shown as where you rank among them
How do I benchmark my university's research expenditures against peers?
The NSF HERD survey reports how much each university spends on research each year, and how much of that comes from the federal government. To make the number mean something, compare it against schools like yours — your Carnegie peer group — not a national average. Strategic Pursuit works out exactly where you rank in that group, then adds how your federal funding is trending and whether you depend too much on one agency. Raw spending figures become a clear read on your standing.
The honest line
We show our work — and we show the gaps.
We're still loading data on every institution in the country. If we don't have the research-spending numbers for your school yet, the page tells you that plainly — it never makes up a ranking. What works today is the approach itself: how we pick your true peer group, how we figure out your rank, and how we measure your federal funding share. As more data arrives each week, your comparison gets sharper — and you'll see exactly when, because every number shows the official source it came from and the date we last checked it.
“We don’t have your peer comparison loaded yet” is the truth, not a placeholder.
The read
Three signals, one clear read against your peers.
Sample scorecard · example
- Total research spending
- ranks ahead of 72% of peers
- Federal funding trend
- ▲ rising over 5 years
- Funder concentration
- 71% from one agency — risk flag
Ahead of the pack, or behind
Your bar lit up against everyone else's — the one number that matters. Where you rank, not the raw dollar figure, tells you whether a grant is worth going after.
The trend, not just today
Your federal funding share over five years tells you whether your standing is climbing or slipping. Ranking near the top but sliding looks very different from ranking the same and rising.
Leaning on one funder is a risk
Getting 70% or more of your federal research dollars from a single agency is risky when budgets shift, as they have through 2025-26. The benchmark flags it, and the report shows you other grants you'd qualify for.
Example only, to show how it works. Real rankings appear once your school's research-spending numbers are loaded; until then, the page says so plainly.
Why it's hard to copy
No search box can tell you this.
A funding search box can list grants. It can't tell a VP for Research that her university ranks ahead of three out of four schools like it on federal funding — but leans dangerously hard on a single agency. That read takes the NSF HERD survey, IPEDS, USAspending, and the right peer group, pulled together by our AI into one clear picture. It's what turns a search into a real plan.
FAQ