University committed to research as a central part of its mission
A research university or a research-intensive university is a
university that is committed to
research as a central part of its mission.[3][4][5][6] They are "the key sites of
knowledge production", along with "intergenerational
knowledge transfer and the certification of new knowledge" through the awarding of
doctoral degrees, and continue to be "the very center of scientific productivity".[7] They can be
public or
private, and often have well-known brand names.[8]
Undergraduate courses at many research universities are often academic rather than
vocational and may not prepare students for particular careers, but many employers value degrees from research universities because they teach fundamental
life skills such as
critical thinking.[9] Globally, research universities are overwhelmingly
public institutions, while some countries like the United States and Japan also have well-known
private research institutions.[3]
Institutions of higher education that are not research universities or do not aspire to that designation, such as
liberal 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 to
publish or perish.[10]
History
19th century
The concept of the research university first arose in early 19th-century
Prussia in Germany, where
Wilhelm von Humboldt championed his vision of Einheit 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, and
humanities, rather than on the previous goals of the university education, which was to develop an understanding of truth, beauty, and
goodness.[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 nine
colonial colleges chartered before the
American Revolution (
Harvard,
Yale,
Pennsylvania,
Princeton, and
Columbia); five state universities (
Michigan,
Wisconsin,
Minnesota,
Illinois, and
California); and five private institutions conceived from their inception as research universities (
MIT,
Cornell,
Johns Hopkins,
Stanford, and
Chicago)."[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, president
Daniel 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]
20th century
Research universities were essential to the establishment of American
hegemony by the end of the 20th century.[17] Most importantly, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, and Princeton (along with Birmingham and Cambridge in the UK) directly participated in the creation of the first
nuclear weapons (the
Manhattan Project).[18][19][20] Besides that, Columbia and Harvard were instrumental in the early development of the
American film industry (Hollywood),[21] MIT and Stanford were leaders in building the American
military–industrial complex[22] and developing
artificial intelligence,[23] and Berkeley and Stanford played a central role in the development of
Silicon Valley.[24] The "most prestigious group of research universities" in the United States is the
Association of American Universities.[25]
Since the 1960s, American research universities, especially the leading American public research
university system, the
University of California,[4][26][27] have served as models for research universities around the world.[28][29] Having one or more universities based on the American model (including the use of
English as a lingua franca) is a badge of "social progress and
modernity" for the contemporary
nation-state.[30] 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]
John Taylor, Professor of Higher Education Management at the
University of Liverpool, defines the key characteristics of successful research universities as:[6]
A 2012
National 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:[33]
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
Global
university rankings use metrics that primarily measure research to rank universities.[34][35][36] 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),[37] or teaching undergraduates, having a research output of more than 1000 research papers over 5 years, and no more than 80% of activity in a single subject area (Times Higher Education World University Rankings).[38]
Worldwide distribution
The QS World University Ranking for 2021 included 1002 research universities. The region with the highest number was
Europe, with 39.8%, followed by
Asia/Pacific with 26.7%, the
US and
Canada with 15.6%,
Latin America with 10.8% and the
Middle East and
Africa 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 from
East Asia and
Eastern Europe, followed by
Southern Europe.[39] By individual country, the US has the most institutions with 151, followed by the UK with 84, China with 51, and Germany with 45. The top 200 shows a similar pattern with the US having 45 universities, the UK 26 and Germany 12.[40] By comparison, the
Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (2015) identifies 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][41]
The Academic Ranking of World Universities shows a similar distribution, with 185 of their 500 ranked institutions in 2020 coming from Europe, 161 from the Americas, 149 from Asia/Oceania and five from Africa. All regions except Africa are represented in the top 100, although the Americas are represented solely by universities from the United States and Canada.[42] In 2024, the US has the most universities in the top 500 from a single country, 114, followed by China with 103, the UK with 35 and Germany with 35.[43] The top 200 shows the similar pattern: the US with 59 followed by China with 37 and the UK with 20.[44]
The 2024 Times Higher Education only gives a breakdown by country and only for its top 200; this again has the U.S. at the top with 56, followed by the
UK with 25,
Germany with 21, and
China with 13. The top 200 features one university from Africa, the
University of Cape Town in
South Africa, but none from
Latin America.[45] The U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Ranking 2021 gives numbers by country for the 1500 universities ranked from 86 countries: the U.S. is again top, with 255, followed by China with 176 and the UK with 87.[46] The 2024 CWTS Leiden Ranking includes 1,506 universities in the rankings from 65 countries: China tops the list, with 313, followed by the U.S. with 206, and the UK with 63.[47]
^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. Retrieved 6 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. Retrieved 25 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. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
^Marginson, Simon (2016). The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr's California Idea of Higher Education. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 51–55.
doi:
10.1525/luminos.17.
ISBN978-0-520-29284-0.
^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. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
^"Standard Listings". Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. University of Indiana.
Archived from the original on 30 July 2018. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
^"Statistics". Academic Ranking of World Universities 2020. ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. Archived from
the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 18 September 2020.