Apon et al. — $14.3M HERD per $100K research-computing salary; $1.3M per 100 TFLOPs

Apon and colleagues found that every $100,000 in research-computing salaries is associated with a $14.3 million increase in higher-education R&D expenditure, and every 100 TeraFLOPs of added capacity with a $1.3 million increase (S-0108).

The figure is leverage, not direct ROI: it measures the institutional research-funding capacity unlocked by additional infrastructure investment, not the dollar-value-per-dollar return. As leverage, the 143:1 ratio (HERD increase per salary dollar) is one of the cleanest available demonstrations that infrastructure capacity is the constraint — adding capacity unlocks proportionally larger increases in the institution's overall research-funding ability.

The case extends C-0031: research data infrastructure is not just self-justifying through direct ROI; it is also a leverage point for the institution's competitive position in attracting research funding generally.