UCD among nation’s top-tier research universities
The University of Colorado Denver is among the nation’s top-tier research universities, according to a revised classification system by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The Stanford, Calif.-based independent policy and research center recently issued an extensive revision of what it now calls its “basic classification” of U.S. colleges and universities. The original framework, last revised in 2000, was created in 1970 by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education as a way to differentiate colleges and universities for research purposes.
The new framework consists of classifications meant to reflect the “increasingly complex and multifaceted” higher education landscape, and is based on data through 2004, the most recent year for which information was available for all institutions. Doctoral-granting universities are now classified in three groups, including those with “very high research activity,” those with “high research activity,” and “doctoral/research universities.” Carnegie expects to further fine tune its classification of doctorate-granting universities by December.
UCD, comprised of three campuses in Denver and Aurora, and 94 other institutions have been included in Carnegie’s classification of universities with very high research activity. Others in the grouping are the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado State University, California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and Northwestern University.
“ UCD is Colorado’s top urban research university, and its three campuses together create a powerful hub that spans the social sciences, arts and sciences, medicine, pharmacy, nursing and dentistry,” said John Sladek, PhD, UCD vice chancellor for research. “Our inclusion among the nation’s top research centers is a wonderful acknowledgement of the scientific breakthroughs and innovative work of our faculty, staff and students.”
During fiscal year 2004, annual competitive research awards and contracts at UCD exceeded a record $300 million. That same year, the CU School of Medicine ranked 20th overall and ninth among public institutions for total award funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health. Between Oct. 1, 2003 and Sept. 30, 2004, the NIH granted 445 awards to the CU School of Medicine totaling more than $172 million. The awards funded biomedical research as well as training grants, fellowships, career awards and more.
In fiscal year 2004, the CU School of Pharmacy received $6.8 million in NIH funding out of the school’s total $13.5 million in research funding from all sources, including state, federal and corporate contributions.
The UCD system fared even better in fiscal year 2005, receiving some 1,618 sponsored research grants totaling more than $363 million. Biomedical and basic science research made up the bulk of the funding at more than $345 million.
According to the Carnegie Foundation (www.carnegiefoundation.org), its classification system is the leading typology of all accredited colleges and universities in the United States and is based on data from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation and the College Board.
The new classification system enables the research community to sort and identify groups of comparable institutions in much greater detail. Carnegie officials said they wanted the new, Web-based system to answer three key questions: What is taught, to whom, and in what setting? The foundation’s new online tools provide for institution lookup, list generation and downloadable custom listings.
“ The basic classification has been changed because the higher education landscape has become increasingly complex and multifaceted. We concluded that attempting to shoehorn all institutions into one category had introduced distortions, inaccuracies and obscurities that could be avoided. We introduced the five new classifications to reflect those complexities,” Carnegie President Lee S. Shulman said in a news release.
