Vanderbilt R&D generates more than 5,000 Middle Tennessee jobs

Research and development activities at Vanderbilt generated more than 5,000 Middle Tennessee jobs on campus and off, according to recently released federal statistics.

Those jobs are among the nearly one million generated by research and development activities at colleges and universities throughout the United States. In Tennessee, the number of jobs created by state academic institutions is 12,545, according to data collected in 1999, the most recent year complete statistics were available.

That federal data, collected by the Association of American Universities, looks at grant money received at academic institutions and applies U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis standards to that data to estimate the employment impact to colleges and to surrounding communities as well.

Vanderbilt's research expenditures of more than $149 million directly and indirectly supported an estimated 5,149 jobs in Middle Tennessee.

"While the primary goal of university research is to advance science and scholarship, better understand and treat diseases, explore new technologies, and prepare future researchers and teachers, we should not overlook the more immediate impact university research has on the local economy, including the creation of thousands of jobs in a variety of areas scientific, administrative, clerical and financial," Chancellor Gordon Gee said.

Vanderbilt competes for research funds from federal agencies, foundations and industrial sponsors. "We believe budget increases for federal research agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, are a good investment and sound public policy for the nation, and for the state of Tennessee," Gee said.