By Sara Weissman
Next year, Howard University is expected to gain Research-1 status, the coveted Carnegie Foundation classification for doctoral universities with very high research activity. HBCU leaders and experts say Howardās ascendance would be a win for the entire sector as more historically Black institutions strive to make it into the upper echelons of research. Currently 10 other HBCUs have R-2 status, connoting high research activity; a couple are already hot on Howardās heels, falling just shy of meeting the criteria for next year.
R-1 status has become a badge of honor in the higher ed world, known to attract high-caliber faculty and prestigious research funding opportunities. But for two decades, the designation has eluded historically Black colleges and universities, many of which remain hampered by chronic underfunding and other challenges. Multiple HBCUs have been vying toĀ join the ranks of R-1 universities, galvanizing their faculty to apply for grants and funneling unprecedented resources into research.
Now Howard is poised to become the only HBCU to hold the designation, after meeting recently revised R-1 criteria for the 2025 Carnegie classifications cycle, university leaders say. The designation would be a major boon for the Washington, D.C., institution, which secured R-1 status back in 1987 but lost it in 2005 after updates to the classifications.
Thereās been āhealthy competitionā among HBCU presidents seeking R-1 status, including jokes back and forth over who would make it to the top, but itās āall in fun,ā said Bruce Jones, senior vice president for research at Howard. Jones wants to see other HBCUs follow; heās currently preparing a presentation about how Howard achieved R-1 status for a handful of HBCUs that have asked for guidance.
āThis is about HBCUs, all of us, moving forward,ā he said.
More HBCUs are expected to follow, particularly since the American Council on Education joined the Carnegie Foundation in overseeing the classifications process in 2022 and implemented changes to the system. Previously, R-1 status was decided based on a complex formula involving multiple metrics. After soliciting extensive input from higher ed experts and leaders, including at HBCUs, stewards of the Carnegie classifications simplified the criteria to two qualifications: institutions must spend at least $50Ā million a year on research and development and award at least 70 doctorates.
Howard officials said the university awarded 91 Ph.D.s and spent about $85Ā million in fiscal year 2023, well beyond the new Carnegie criteria. But even if the old, more complex criteria were still in use, they would have met them, they said.
With the new criteria, Mushtaq Gunja, executive director of the Carnegie classification systems, believes more HBCUs are likely to show up on the R-1 list in the next round of classifications, which are published every three years.
āWe were a little worried that we were not recognizing in this very high research activity institution [category], all the institutions that were doing very large amounts of research,ā Gunja said. āI think it will now be extremely clear what one needs to do to be able to get into this R-1 bucket.ā
Whoās Up Next
Most HBCUs with R-2 status arenāt ready to make the jump to R-1, even under the new criteria. But there are some notable exceptions, said Jaret C. Riddick, senior fellow at Georgetown Universityās Center for Security and Emerging Technology, who studies HBCUsā pursuit of R-1 status.
His breakdown of data from recent years showed that HBCUs generally fell short of R-1 status in one of three ways: They needed to double their Ph.D. conferrals, double their research spending or were ānot closeā on either metric.
But two institutions in particular seem to be on the brink of R-1, according to Riddick and other experts.
This past year,Ā North Carolina A&T State UniversityĀ spent $102Ā million on research and development and conferred 68 doctoratesājust two short of the R-1 requirement, said Melissa Hodge-Penn, interim research vice chancellor at North Carolina A&T. But Ph.D. conferrals went up over the summer and are expected to continue growing since the land-grant university added new programs, including a nursing doctorate.
āItās anticipated that we will indeed, under the next classification review, based on the new guidelines, be at R-1 status,ā Hodge-Penn said. āIt will put us amongst the top research institutions across the country,ā proving āwe are competitive against all research institutions, not just HBCUs and [minority-serving institutions].ā North Carolina A&T would be the first public HBCU to make the cut.
Morgan State University also fell just shy of meeting R-1 criteria for this yearās classifications.
Morgan State president David K. Wilson said the university conferred an average of 66 Ph.D.s per year over the last three years, only four under the R-1 minimum. Research expenditures fell a mere $6Ā million short. Wilson projects Morgan will exceed the R-1 research spending specification by at least $20Ā million and hit, if not surpass, its Ph.D. conferral requirement come next cycle. As he put it, Morgan is on track to āmove into the penthouseā of American research.
āI congratulate Howard for potentially being the first to cross the lineābut Morgan will be joining them shortly,ā Wilson said.
While most of the attention has focused on HBCUs striving for R-1 status, Riddick said itās also valuable to note the HBCUs poised to jump to R-2 status, which requires 20 Ph.D. conferrals and $5Ā million in research and development expenditures. Based on his read of 2023 data, four HBCUs could potentially reach R-2 status in the 2025 Carnegie Classifications release.
Hurdles and Hard Work
Howard and other HBCUs have gone to great lengths to achieve R-1 status.
When Jones was hired in 2018, the university didnāt even have an Office of Research.
āWe now have a whole body of staff in the area of research developmentā to write grant proposals, monitor awards, ensure research compliance and help commercialize faculty innovations and inventions, Jones said. āThat basically didnāt exist before there was an office.ā
Howard alsoĀ engaged with federal agenciesĀ to secure grants and partnered with national research labs so students and faculty would have access to state-of-the-art equipment.
āYou have to look at your faculty expertise and see where thereās potential to grow, to go after these grants, to go after these contracts,ā Jones said.
Morgan State took a similar systematic approach to pursuing R-1 status. Wilson set a goal in the universityās current 10-year strategic plan to reach the prized classification by 2030. The institution also hired a vice president of research, the second in its history, and went about creating a ādigital twin of the Carnegie model,ā based on the old criteria, to track the universityās progress toward R-1 status.
āWe knew how close or far away we were from crossing the line,ā Wilson said, though the new criteria have made that process less complicated.
The HBCUs nearing R-1 status have had significant challenges to overcome.
Howard, in some ways, had a āhead startā on its peers, Jones said. It began building research labs and developing graduate programs in the 1800s and early 1900s, but that wasnāt the norm for HBCUs, which were founded as teaching colleges andĀ persistently underfunded. Many still donāt have the funding to update their infrastructure and facilities to achieve the necessary levels of research production.
Gunja said federal agencies have also primarily funded āthe same types of institutions year over year, so if you werenāt part of the club that had big research infrastructure and was already regularly getting grantsĀ ā¦ you might not be on their radar.ā Historically, HBCUs āwerenāt in that club.ā
The old R-1 criteria also disadvantaged some HBCUs because institutions were classified partly based on ācomprehensiveness,ā or the variety of degrees conferred. Gunja said that hurt state institutions, such as North Carolina A&T, for example, which focuses on specific programs like agriculture at the behest of the state, while its neighbor, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, offers a wider variety of Ph.D.s in humanities and social sciences.
āIām hoping that the new classification structure will really allow institutions to not have to contort their educational missions to try to meet some complicated math formulaĀ ā¦ but will instead allow those institutions to be able to be the best versions of themselves and really create the sets of degree offerings that are right for their community, for their region, for their students and for the local economy,ā Gunja said.
Riddick said the highest research producers in the country also tend to share some key features that are hard for HBCUs to achieve.
His research found that the top-performing R-1 institutions typically spend about $1Ā billion on research and developmentāabout a third of which comes out of their own institutional fundsāand at least 35Ā percent of the Ph.D.s they confer are in STEM fields. This gives them an advantage, he said, because STEM programs require more lab space and equipment, which contribute to an increase in research and development spending.
By contrast, most HBCUs with R-2 status have strong but less sprawling STEM programs, and HBCUs in general tend to haveĀ less endowment moneyĀ to draw on than their predominantly white counterparts. If state lawmakers and donors want to help more HBCUs reach R-1 status, he said, STEM programs and endowments would beĀ fruitful areas for investment.
āInstitutional funding is clearly critical to those schools that are at the top, and this is a place where HBCUs are significantly challenged,ā he said. Endowments are ābuilt up over time, and you canāt get that time back.ā
Why It Matters
The stakes of achieving R-1 status are high. The designation increases universitiesā prestige, makes them more competitive for research grants and can spur philanthropic largess from donors interested in funding research projects.
But Jones said the ultimate beneficiaries are the students, who get to attend a university with more money for scholarships, fellowships and research opportunities. He noted that Howard disproportionately serves students from low-income families.
āHaving these investments, it gives us greater capability to tap into the potential of those students who are often left out,ā he said.
Wilson added that the push for R-1 status isnāt just about benefiting HBCUs but also about adding a distinct new perspective to the academic research world. He sees Morgan State as uniquely poised to conduct research on issues of importance to minority communities, from how to close education achievement gaps and reduce urban crime to how to ensure artificial intelligence models are free of racial bias.
āWeāre not about research for researchās sake,ā Wilson said. āWeāre about research for impact. Weāre about research for competitiveness. Weāre about research that is going to bring forward evidence-based results to enable policymakers and philanthropists and others [to address] vexing challenges facing our nation.ā