Aresearch university or aresearch-intensive university is auniversity that is committed toresearch as a central part of its mission.[3][4][5][6] They are "the key sites ofknowledge production", along with "intergenerationalknowledge transfer and the certification of new knowledge" through the awarding ofdoctoral degrees, and continue to be "the very center of scientific productivity".[7] They can bepublic orprivate, and often have well-known brand names.[8]
Undergraduate courses at many research universities are often academic rather thanvocational and may not prepare students for particular careers, but many employers value degrees from research universities because they teach fundamentallife skills such ascritical thinking.[9] Globally, research universities are overwhelminglypublic institutions, while some countries like the United States and Japan also have well-knownprivate research institutions.[3]
Institutions of higher education that are not research universities or do not aspire to that designation, such asliberal arts colleges, instead place more emphasis on student instruction or other aspects of tertiary education, whereas research university faculty members, in contrast, are under more pressure topublish or perish.[10]
The concept of the research university first arose in early 19th-centuryPrussia in Germany, whereWilhelm von Humboldt championed his vision ofEinheit von Lehre und Forschung (the unity of teaching and research), as a means of producing an education that focused on the main areas of knowledge, including the natural sciences, social sciences, andhumanities, rather than on the previous goals of the university education, which was to develop an understanding of truth, beauty, andgoodness.[11][12]
Roger L. Geiger, "the leading historian of the American research university,"[13] has argued that "the model for the American research university was established by five of the ninecolonial colleges chartered before theAmerican Revolution (Harvard,Yale,Pennsylvania,Princeton, andColumbia); five state universities (Michigan,Wisconsin,Minnesota,Illinois, andCalifornia); and five private institutions conceived from their inception as research universities (MIT,Cornell,Johns Hopkins,Stanford, andChicago)."[14][15] The American research university first emerged in the late 19th century, when these fifteen institutions began to graft graduate programs derived from the German model onto undergraduate programs derived from the British model.[14] At Johns Hopkins, presidentDaniel Coit Gilman led the development of the American research university[1] by setting high standards for recruiting faculty and admitting students, and insisting that faculty members had to commit to both teaching and research.[16]
The Americans' continued dominance into the early 21st century has forced their European counterparts to confront the urgent need for reform to avoid "declining into an advanced form of feeder colleges for the best American universities."[31] During that same timeframe, several wealthypetrostates in thePersian Gulf region subsidized the creation of local branches of American universities.[32] When that approach proved insufficient to establish indigenousresearch andstartup ecosystems (to support the planned long-term diversification of their economies away frompetroleum), they started to build their own research universities from the ground up by recruiting Western-trained faculty and staff.[32]
John Taylor, Professor of Higher Education Management at theUniversity of Liverpool, defines the key characteristics of successful research universities as:[6]
A 2012National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report defined research universities, in the American context, as having values of intellectual freedom, initiative and creativity, excellence, and openness, with such additional characteristics as:[34]
Being large and comprehensive –Clark Kerr's "multiversity"
Emphasizing the undergraduate residential experience (flagged specifically as distinguishing American research universities from those in continental Europe)
Having faculty engaged in research and scholarship
Conducting research at high levels
Having enlightened and bold leadership
Globaluniversity rankings use metrics that primarily measure research to rank universities.[35][36][37] Some also have criteria for inclusion based on the concept of a research university such as teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and conducting work in multiple faculties (QS World University Rankings),[38] or teaching undergraduates, having a research output of more than 1,000 research papers over 5 years, and no more than 80% of activity in a single subject area (Times Higher Education World University Rankings).[39]
TheCarnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education in the United States designates institutions that spend on average at least $2.5 million on research and development annually as 'research universities and colleges', with further designations of 'research 2: high spending and doctorate production' and 'research 1: very high spending and doctorate production' for institutions spending over $5 million and awarding 20 or more doctorates per year and institutions spending over $50 million and awarding 70 or more doctorates per year respectively.[40] As of 2025,[update] there were 187 R1 universities, 139 R2 universities and 216 other research universities in the US out of 3,941 total institutions classified.[41]
TheQS World University Ranking for 2021 included 1,002 research universities. The region with the highest number wasEurope, with 39.8%, followed byAsia/Pacific with 26.7%, theUS andCanada with 15.6%,Latin America with 10.8%, and theMiddle East andAfrica with 7%. All regions except the Middle East and Africa were represented in the top 100. The largest number of new entrants to the rankings were fromEast Asia andEastern Europe, followed bySouthern Europe.[42] By individual country, the US had the most institutions with 151, followed by the UK with 84, China with 51 and Germany with 45. The top 200 showed a similar pattern with the US having 45 universities, the UK 26 and Germany 12.[43] By comparison, theCarnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (2015) identified 115 US universities as "Doctoral Universities: Highest Research Activity" and a further 107 as "Doctoral Universities: Higher Research Activity", while Altbach estimated that there were around 220 research universities in the US in 2013.[3][44]
TheAcademic Ranking of World Universities for 2020 showed a similar distribution, with 185 of their 500 ranked institutions coming from Europe, 161 from the Americas, 149 from Asia/Oceania and five from Africa. All regions except Africa were represented in the top 100, although the Americas were represented solely by universities from the United States and Canada.[45] In 2025, China had the most universities in the top 500, 113, followed by the US with 111, the UK with 37 and Germany with 35.[46] However, the top 200 shows the different pattern: the US with 58 followed by China with 39 and the UK with 18.[47]
The 2026Times Higher Education only gave a breakdown by country and only for its top 200; this again had the US at the top with 55, followed by theUK with 26,Germany with 18 andChina with 13. The top 200 featured one university from Africa, theUniversity of Cape Town inSouth Africa, but none fromLatin America.[48] TheU.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Ranking 2025 gave numbers by country for the 2250 universities ranked from more than 100 countries: China was the top, with 397, followed by the US with 280 and India with 118.[49] However, the U.S. had 115 schools in the top 500, followed by China with 70 schools and the UK with 37.[50] The 2024CWTS Leiden Ranking included 1,506 universities in the rankings from 65 countries: China topped the list, with 313, followed by the US with 206 and the UK with 63.[51]
^Powell, Justin J. W.; Fernandez, Frank; Crist, John T.; Dusdal, Jennifer; Zhang, Liang; Baker, David P. (2017)."Introduction: The Worldwide Triumph of the Research University and Globalizing Science". In Powell, Justin J. W.; Fernandez, Frank; Baker, David P. (eds.).The Century of Science: The Global Triumph of the Research University. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. pp. 1–36.ISBN9781787144699.Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved6 November 2022. (At p. 8.)
^Menand, Louis; Reitter, Paul; Wellmon, Chad (2017)."General Introduction".The Rise of the Research University: A Sourcebook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 2–3.ISBN9780226414850.Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved25 January 2017.
^Scott, W. Richard; Lara, Bernardo; Biag, Manuelito; Ris, Ethan; Liang, Judy (2017)."The Regional Economy of the San Francisco Bay Area". In Scott, W. Richard; Kirst, Michael W. (eds.).Higher Education and Silicon Valley: Connected But Conflicted. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 65.ISBN9781421423081.Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved11 August 2019.
^Stevens, Mitchell L.; Giebel, Sonia (2020)."The Paradox of the Global University". In Hyvönen, Mats; Peters, Michael A.; Rider, Sharon; Besley, Tina (eds.).World Class Universities: A Contested Concept. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. pp. 123–137.ISBN9789811575983.Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved27 February 2023.
^"Standard Listings".Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. University of Indiana.Archived from the original on 30 July 2018. Retrieved11 August 2018.
^"Statistics".Academic Ranking of World Universities 2020. ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. Archived fromthe original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved18 September 2020.
_-_Charles_William%2c_Baron_von_Humboldt_(1767-1835)_-_RCIN_404936_-_Royal_Collection.jpg)
.jpg)
