To help facilitate focused and deliberate action, this report contains a current baseline assessment of the condition of research at colleges and universities in Virginia. The report brings together key sets of national data on research into one convenient place. It also provide a collection of many of the primary indicators used to assess how well individual institutions and states are performing in the competitive world of research. Data from various sources show that Virginia ranked 16th nationally in 2000 based on total academic research and development (R&D) expenditures. Findings show that the ability of research universities to attract federal support for R&D activities is driven largely by their ability to align faculty expertise with the federal research agenda. Virginia institutions appear to lag behind the top national research universities in terms of world-renowned researchers, and few of the state's science and engineering facilities are ranked among the top in the United States. The state's institutions of higher education experience a shortfall in the amount of space available to support their existing research programs, and the ability to conduct state-of-the-art research and its ability to attract world-class faculty is dependent in part on the availability and sophistication of its research equipment, an ability that is compromised by budget reductions. Virginia's faculty members are not generating as much research support as their peers nationally. It is also apparent that the lack of state policies that support and foster academic research has hindered the ability of Virginia's institutions to advance their research errors. Findings also show that most successful state R&D initiatives share key similar characteristics of focused areas of research, long term and sustained R&D investment, and collaborative efforts among higher education, government, and business and industry. (Contains 8 tables, 4 figures, and 42 references.) (SLD)