Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: Historically Black colleges and universities hold a unique position in the efforts of the United States to diversify the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics academic and workforce communities. Although our Nation’s historically Black colleges and universities make up just 3 percent of the colleges and universities in the United States, historically Black colleges and universities graduate 25 percent of African-American students with baccalaureate degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Historically Black colleges and universities are the institution of origin for almost 30 percent of Black graduates of science and engineering doctorate programs. The health of the Department of Defense and the United States research ecosystem relies on high quality researchers from a diverse talent pool. Historically Black colleges and universities have a history of conducting high quality research in unique areas, both providing impactful research outcomes and developing the next generation of the research ecosystem, including by— conducting high quality research in unique areas that has enriched the Department of Defense research enterprise and the United States research ecosystem, including— providing science and engineering faculty research opportunities at U.S.
Navy Laboratories; a Young Investigators Program at the Air Force Research Laboratory supporting basic and applied research on aerospace systems (RQ), materials and manufacturing (RX), and information (RI); and Centers of Excellence in biotechnology and materials science; and strengthening and diversifying the United States research ecosystem by increasing the number of students who are students of diverse backgrounds from historically Black colleges and universities with undergraduate or graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics; and fueling domestic and international collaborations that led to trailblazing discoveries and innovative technologies.
In 2019, historically Black colleges and universities received $371,000,000, or about 0.8 percent of the $44,500,000,000 in Federal funding to institutions of higher education for research and development. The amount of funding for 2019 is a marked decrease from fiscal year 2018, when historically Black colleges and universities received $400,000,000 in Federal research and development funding (0.9 percent of the Federal funding to institutions of higher education for such purposes).
There are no historically Black colleges and universities designated as very high research activity status, as classified by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Meaningfully investing in the research capacity of historically Black colleges and universities is an investment in our Nation’s future and will help meet accelerating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce demands and safeguard the national security interests of the United States.