The characteristics of institutional R&D investment in the STEM field under policy streams over time

Abstract

The STEM field has contributed significantly to the development of society because its findings result in new technology, which gives people more efficient tools and methods for a better standard of living. Postsecondary institutions have trained STEM field graduates through advanced curricula and learning environments. Compared to other academic fields, STEM requires more monetary support for research from the institution or the government because STEM research often requires expensive equipment installation or the introduction of new technologies. This paper overviews institutional support for STEM education and research by the regime of recent U.S. governments and examines the characteristics of R&D (research and development) expenditure. The results indicate that the R&D expenditures of the STEM field show continuous support for the different type of institutions, regardless of governments over time. However, they have tried to diversify the R&D investment by the type of R&D field and institutional type. Even though the government has tried to increase the total size of R&D expenditure through various resources, they still need to consider the equity and diversity issues for even further R&D investment strategies. A further research direction would search for the detailed action and strategies to support the STEM field according to their types of support or expectation.

The role of STEM Education in improving the quality of education: a bibliometric study

“…Obama, and his administration has passed two specific initiatives to improve STEM teaching and learning. They first launched "Educate to Innovate" in 2009, followed by "Change the Equation "in 2010 (Hwang, 2021). "Change the Equation" was a specific call to action for the business community to become more involved in STEM education, which was also one of the goals of Educate to Innovate (Hwang, 2021;Sahin, 2015).…”

“…They first launched "Educate to Innovate" in 2009, followed by "Change the Equation "in 2010 (Hwang, 2021). "Change the Equation" was a specific call to action for the business community to become more involved in STEM education, which was also one of the goals of Educate to Innovate (Hwang, 2021;Sahin, 2015). Therefore, the number of publications raised after policymakers' attention.…”