The Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust says it has invested more than $17 million in research grants over the past ten years, generating more than $70 million^[1][2]. Its 2024-25 annual report frames the return on investment as nearing $70 million and calls it a 4X return^[3][4]. The program-level tally: 162 grantees, $17,082,156 awarded, $69,624,720 in return of funding^[5][6][7]. That headline number is easy to misread, because it is not money returned to the treasury or tax revenue. The Trust's own 2022-2025 strategic plan defines the Research Grants Program's ROI as the number of external grants grantees secure after receiving Trust funds, plus research assets - publications, patents, students impacted, dissertations, companies funded and conference presentations^[8]. The figures are self-reported by grantees through periodic progress reports; the program page dates the current $69.6 million to reports through April 2024^[9][10]. One fiscal year shows what the accounting looks like in practice. For July 2021 through June 2022, grantees reported $13,811,978 in grants awarded and $37,301,563 in return^[11][12] - itemized as 130 publications, 428 students impacted, 60 patent applications, 39 patents, 18 awarded SBIR/STTR proposals, 417 conference presentations and 8 founded companies^[13][14]. And the same word means something different a few doors down: parallel18's "at least 5X" counts sales, with Puerto Rican graduates generating more than $83 million in revenue^[15][16], while the SBIR/STTR program's 3X runs on its own since-2017 baseline^[17]. None of this makes the numbers wrong - it makes them a specific kind of measure. The Department of Economic Development and Commerce and the Government of Puerto Rico allocated $9.5 million to feed this pipeline^[18]; the latest disbursement moved $1.8 million, including $150,000 to each of eleven scientific investigations^[19][20]. What the four-to-one figure captures is leverage - seed money converting into federal grants, publications, patents and companies - and it is visible in the output: Wavemaps, an ocean-intelligence startup, sells to clients in 17 countries^[21], and Flora Rural turns sargassum into building materials for affordable housing^[22]. The program is also the island's only peer-reviewed funding mechanism open to researchers at every career stage^[23]. When policymakers weigh the next appropriation, this is the scoreboard they will read - and the units on it are now public.