Historically, many of the innovations that have led to new observational facilities have had their origins in small-scale university and institutional research. Theoretical concepts originating from studies of solar activity, include, for example, coronal expansion and the solar wind and the heliosphere, the solar dynamo, rapid reconnection of magnetic fields, radio emission from plasma oscillations, and the negative hydrogen ion.

Much of the current solar data analysis and theory is carried out in universities and in national institutes (e.g., HAO and NSO) with NSF funding, or in institutes and universities that focus more on space-based projects, with only indirect attention to ground-based studies, through supporting research and technology contracts from NASA. Thus, for example, the Big Bear Solar Observatory, the Lockheed Martin Solar Research Laboratory, the Marshall Space Flight Center, and others reflect the changing funding patterns away from traditional NSF support, now significantly oriented to exploit and support space observations of the Sun. New university groups at Michigan State University, California State University at Northridge, Montana State University, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology are part of this same trend.