Northeastern University has moved into the top tier for research activity among institutions of higher education, according to a top ranking used to distinguish US colleges and universities.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education on Tuesday released its 2015 rankings, which include 4,664 institutions nationwide. Northeastern is now one of only 115 universities in the “highest research activity” category and was one of only 15 universities to move into this category since the previous ranking in 2010.
The ranking signals the impact of the university's strategic vision and investments over the past 10 years that have elevated Northeastern to a force on par with the nation's elite research colleges and universities. It builds on Northeastern's unprecedented momentum, which includes continued investment in research and faculty recruitment, strong student applications and a historic fundraising campaign. With the updated ranking, Boston now has a higher concentration of universities in the top tier for research than any other metropolitan area in the country.
Under President Aoun's leadership, the university has strengthened its commitment to applied, interdisciplinary research that addresses global challenges. In 2014-15, Northeastern secured $127.5 million in external research funding — compared to $48.7 million in 2005-06, and since 2006 the university has received 168 awards of at least $1 million. The upcoming Interdisciplinary Complex of Science and Engineering will mark a transformative moment for Northeastern's research enterprise.
In the past three years Northeastern has awarded doctorates to 468 students and since 2006 has hired more than 500 tenured or tenure-track faculty, many of whom hold joint college appointments.
Northeastern, in recent years, opened an innovation campus in Burlington, Massachusetts, anchored by the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security; launched advanced new degree programs including the country's first PhD program in network science; it was designated Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Business from the National Security Agency; secured a $20 million deal with the US military to conduct critical defense research; and it was recently selected by NASA to collaborate on humanoid robot research. And a research team led by biology professors Kim Lewis and Slava Epstein discovered a new antibiotic that kills pathogens without resistance, research that made global headlines and won praise from the scientific community.
Last week, Moody's also revised the university's A2 bond rating to a “positive” outlookputting Northeastern – a world leader in experiential education, with its signature co-op program – among just 15 of 499 higher education institutions rated with a positive outlook.
The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education developed the classification in 1970, and the classification has been published eight times since 1973. In fall 2014, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching transferred responsibility for the classification to the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, Bloomington, although the classification retained the Carnegie name.
“Although intended for research and policy purposes, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education has become an integral part of the fabric of higher education, as it is used by various organizations to shape accountability and opportunity,” Victor HM Borden, professor of higher education and student affairs in the IU School of Education and the project director for the Center for Postsecondary Research, said in a statement. Borden led the team that produced the updated classifications.
Northeastern's Carnegie Classification categorizes it in the “Doctoral Institutions” category, a designation for institutions that awarded at least 20 research or fellowship doctoral degrees in the 2014-15 academic year. Institutions that meet this criterion are ranked in one of three categories based on a measure of research activity, which affects universities' research and development expenditures, science and engineering research staff, and the number of doctoral degrees they grant in various fields. studies. These data are then used to create indicators of both the overall level of research activity and research activity per capita.
