IU research spending tops $1 billion for second straight year

Indiana University reported more than $1 billion in research and development expenditures for fiscal year 2026, its second consecutive year above that threshold. IU said it first crossed $1 billion in FY2025.

FY2026 ended June 30, 2026, according to WFIU/WTIU News. The university reported $869.6 million in sponsored awards during the same fiscal year, a separate measure from expenditures. Awards are not the same as money spent on research during the year.

Different measures, different comparisons

IU reported increases in federally funded awards, National Institutes of Health funding and nonprofit-funded research expenditures. The figures cover different types of activity, so they should not be added together as a single research total.

The university described the $389.7 million in NIH funding as a record. That total includes direct and pass-through awards. The nonprofit figure, by contrast, is reported as research expenditures rather than awards. IU gave the headline R&D amount as more than $1 billion; it did not provide an exact total or an exact year-over-year change for that measure.

Federal and nonprofit activity rose

Federally funded sponsored awards increased by $33 million between FY2025 and FY2026, IU said. NIH funding rose by more than $54 million over the same period. Nonprofit-funded research expenditures increased nearly 32%, to almost $110 million.

These figures describe the scale and reported sources of research activity at Indiana University, a public university system serving Indiana. The announcement reports institution-wide figures and does not break the totals down by campus or research field. They do not, by themselves, establish particular research outcomes or changes in university services.

IU says its research and development expenditure figures reported to the National Science Foundation are subject to review before publication in the federal agency’s Higher Education Research and Development Survey, known as the HERD Survey. The FY2026 total is therefore an IU-reported figure, not a finalized amount published in that survey.

As of October 12, 2026, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics listed FY2024 as the latest released HERD cycle and scheduled the FY2025 data release for November 24, 2026. Its schedule did not give a publication date for FY2026 data.