The National Science Board has released its annual US Science and Engineering 2024 report with key indicators affecting Louisiana. The report also confirms the level of research growth at LSU.
Every two years the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) prepares a Science and Engineering Indicators report that can be used to inform local and national policy makers to help improve scientific outcomes. and engineering.
In addition to tracking national-level rankings, the report analyzes state-level performance against nearly sixty indicators that fall into 6 categories of primary and secondary education, higher education, labor, funding research and development contributions, research and development results, and science. and technology in the economy (focusing on business activities in knowledge/technology intensive industries and early, high-risk investments).
The 2024 report assesses that Louisiana ranks twenty-seventh when it comes to science and engineering workers, twenty-sixth in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), and thirty ninth in the R&D process.
The percentage of Louisianans earning degrees in science and engineering compared to degrees in other fields is 29.6%, lower than the national average of 35.7% of students earning degrees in science and engineering.
The percentage of Louisianans who hold doctorates and are employed in the fields of science, engineering and health is .3% which is also lower than the national share of 0.52%.
Louisiana also performed below the national results for research and development as a percentage of GDP at 0.56% compared to the national percentage of 3.33%.
The US is seeing a sharp decline in elementary and middle school students’ math performance since the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2019 to 2022, average math scores for fourth- and eighth-graders dropped from last measured 20 years ago.
To buck the trend, New Orleans public schools announced in 2024 that student performance had improved by more than two percent. Orleans Parish saw the highest increase in achievement scores for African American students among comparable districts, rising from 19% in 2023 to 22% in 2024. Overall math proficiency it also rose, from 21% to 24%.
Enrollment of foreign students majoring in science and engineering at US institutions has increased rapidly from 200,000 in 2020, the low point of the pandemic, to about 310,000 in 2022. overall of domestic spending on R&D by 2021 and the federal government is a major supporter of education research and development, helping to fund 52% of all R&D done by higher education institutions and supporting 15% of full-time science and engineering students by 2021.
Data from the National Science Foundation confirms that LSU, for example, had research expenditures of $488 million in fiscal year 2023 representing a 14% growth in research expenditures compared to 2022 .The growth reflects an increase in research activity throughout the LSU Family, particularly through publications. campus with LSU Health New Orleans and LSU Health Shreveport.
The national ranking of LSU’s five research campuses—the main one in Baton Rouge, the LSU AgCenter, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and two at LSU Health—improved from 71 to 69. average growth of US research universities was around 11%.
According to LSU, its research adds an estimated $1.3 billion to the Louisiana economy each year. Numbers certified by the National Science Foundation rank LSU as a leader in federally funded research in the life sciences, geosciences, mathematics and statistics, and computer and information sciences. This aligns with the data-driven research priorities of the LSU Scholarship First Agenda to create new solutions in agriculture, biomedicine, coastal, defense and energy.
“This NSF report confirms our focus on growing research to meet national needs as well as our dedication to LSU’s Scholarship First Agenda,” said Robert Twilley, LSU’s vice president for research and economic development.
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