The University of Oklahoma announced today that it has achieved the 2018 Carnegie Institution’s Very High Research Activity classification. With this designation, OU is among the nation’s top 120 doctoral-degree granting institutions in the 2018 top research category. OU made history in 2010 as the first public institution in Oklahoma to receive the Carnegie top tier research university classification and was classified again as a top tier research institution in 2015.
“The OU research community has again achieved a major milestone with the prestigious Carnegie Institution’s classification as one of the nation’s top research universities,” said OU President James Gallogly. “The OU research community has shown a profound commitment and determination in reaching this goal not once, but for a third time.”
“Our classification in the top doctoral research category reflects OU’s continued very strong momentum in research and graduate education,” said Randy Hewes, interim vice president for research on the OU Norman campus. “Our goal now is to build on this success by doubling research funding and the impact of our research and creative activity in the next five years. With an all-time high of $92 million in new sponsored projects awarded to date this fiscal year, smashing our previous record of $77 million set at this time last year, we are well on the way toward achieving that goal.”
The OU Norman campus scored consistently well among all doctoral institutions in the key criteria for classification, including: STEM doctorates conferred, science and engineering research expenditures, social science doctorates conferred, humanities doctorates conferred, other/professional doctorates conferred, postdoctoral fellows and other non-faculty researchers, and non-science and engineering research expenditures.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education includes the Basic Classification of all doctoral-degree granting institutions into three groups. For the 2018 round, 120 institutions make up the top Very High Research Activity tier, while 139 are in the High Research Activity tier. The remaining 163 institutions are classified as Doctoral/Professional Universities. Top tier Carnegie institutions benefit from an enhanced reputation among research sponsors, faculty, prospective graduate students and research collaborators.
Established in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a doctoral degree-granting university and leader in research, healthcare, and academic activity impacting the state of Oklahoma and global community. The Norman campus enrolls more than 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City enrolls more than 3,000 students and the OU-Tulsa campus enrolls more than 1,000. Of the 4,385 incoming freshmen in 2018, the average ACT score is 26.2 and is one of the most diverse and inclusive groups of incoming students in university history. OU began a new focus in 2018 to double research efforts in the next five years, promote OU Medicine as the healthcare provider of choice in the state of Oklahoma, and grow the university in northeastern Oklahoma.