UW ascends to highest level of research universities
The University of Wyoming (UW) has reached the highest level of American research universities, reflecting the university’s broad impact and evolution into a world-class hub for research, innovation, entrepreneurship and public scholarship.
UW is one of 187 institutions nationwide designated as an R1 university by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This announcement puts UW in the top tier of U.S. research universities, as just 4.8 percent of the nation’s nearly 4,000 accredited, degree-granting institutions have reached this “very high research activity” category.
“Achieving Carnegie R1 status increases the value of a UW degree; serves as an impressive recruiting tool for faculty, staff and students; enhances our ability to boost the state’s economy; enriches the student experience through research opportunities and builds on the already extraordinary sense of pride among members of the UW community,” UW President Ed Seidel says. “Getting to this point has taken years of effort. I’m delighted we have achieved this milestone, and we will keep working hard to enhance our value to students and the state of Wyoming.”
Fostering a
research enterprise
Through strategic investments in the last few years, such as the formation of the UW Graduate School and new programs to support research, UW has been supporting faculty members and students to foster its research enterprise.
The university now stands at $166 million annually in research expenditures, an increase of 78 percent since 2021, ranking UW 42nd among the 318 public universities without a medical school.
Additionally, Carnegie R1 status is a measure of a university’s scholarly production. UW regularly produces close to 100 PhD graduates each year.
“Ultimately, this designation sets the stage for economic gains and job growth in Wyoming, beyond even the nearly 14,700 jobs and more than $1.3 billion annually UW contributes to Wyoming’s economy,” says Parag Chitnis, UW’s vice president for research and economic development.
“Most importantly, it will benefit our students, because faculty engaged in research generate new knowledge, which advances the education students receive both inside and outside of the classroom,” Chitnis continues. “Students will be more prepared for careers through inquiry-focused work in labs and creative spaces.”
UW researchers are tackling a wide variety of challenges in fields crucial to Wyoming’s current and future economy, including energy, agriculture, natural resources, biomedical sciences and artificial intelligence.
Boosting research performance
Among the changes made in recent years to boost UW’s research performance were a reorganization of academic departments to better assemble teams for addressing complex problems for which there are large grant opportunities; reworking UW’s Science Initiative to make it more competitive, with interdisciplinary centers which allow faculty and students to do more than they could in just their home departments and starting a School of Computing to link the entire academic enterprise with common expertise.
UW has also created an Office of Industry and Strategic Partnerships and boosted the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to enhance impact on the state’s economy; expanded the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with new faculty positions and created an Artificial Intelligence Initiative, which includes faculty positions, postdoctoral programs, corporate partners, computational facilities and seed grants across the campus.
“UW graduates have long demonstrated they can compete with graduates of even the most elite universities in the country, but now there’s an added measure of prestige associated with their UW diplomas,” Seidel says.
“And, because the prestige of R1 status traditionally has served as magnet for people looking to work and study at the top of their fields, UW is now even more attractive to top-tier faculty and students from around the world,” he concludes.
This story was originally published by UW News on Feb. 13.
