About Research at Howard University

Howard University researchers are working to ensure that advances in science, technology, and social investigation benefit U.S. citizens and populations around the world. In its pursuit of excellence, truth and service, the university’s research initiatives employ a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to solve complex challenges, leveraging technological innovation and thought leadership to develop novel solutions to both emerging and longstanding societal problems.

Howard is dedicated to ensuring that the benefits of innovation are widely accessible to all communities, fostering opportunities for progress and prosperity, including those which have been historically marginalized, underserved, overlooked, and underrepresented.

Howard University is a R1 university, a research university with a Carnegie Classification indicating “very high research spending and doctorate production.” R1 is widely considered to be the highest research activity classification among colleges and universities in the United States. Howard leverages both graduate research and undergraduate research to creates meaningful impact on national and global levels.

Howard’s research priorities address humanity’s most urgent needs through groundbreaking discovery, strategic partnerships, collaboration, and capacity building. Throughout its history, the university has been at the forefront of creating new knowledge by convening experts and innovators from around the world to tackle persistent challenges and unlock future opportunities. In this way, the university serves as a research laboratory, a collaborative hub, a dynamic classroom, and a center of innovation.

For decades, Howard has pioneered research approaches which bring together top minds and state-of-the-art resources to ensure that ingenuity and economic opportunity are shared widely. Howard’s research highlights include:

Research Impact

  • Research at Howard University resulted in nearly $85 million in expenditures in FY 2023, underscoring its significant role in advancing innovation.
  • Multiple Howard research centers are hubs through which to concentrate research activities at other HBCUs throughout the country. These centers include the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center, the Research Institute for Tactical Autonomy, and the PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship.
  • Howard is one of only six institutions worldwide selected as academic partners of the Center for Power Optimization of Electro-Thermal Systems, conducting groundbreaking research in power density to make electric mobility more practical and efficient.
  • · Howard’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive repository of books, documents, and ephemera on the global Black experience.

Leadership in Academic Achievement

  • Howard University produces more Black Ph.D.s in all fields than any other institution in the United States.

Pioneering Health Research

  • The Howard University Center for Sickle Cell Disease is the first in the nation devoted to the disease.
  • The Howard University Cancer Center is the only cancer center at an HBCU that provides a full range of cancer treatment services and trains the next generation of oncology professionals and cancer researchers.
  • The Howard University Cancer Center is the only cancer center at an HBCU research school that provides a full range of cancer treatment services and trains the next generation of oncology professionals and cancer researchers.
  • Howard University Research co-leads medical research partnerships and centers with other leading R1 research universities, including Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.

National Defense Innovation

  • Howard University is a recipient of one of only 15 University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC) in the United States. The research contract was awarded through a competitive process with a ceiling amount of $90 million over an initial five-year period. The focus of the UARC is on tactical autonomy, human-machine teaming, and artificial intelligence. The UARC at Howard is the first at an historically Black college or university (HBCU) research school and the first to be funded by the United States Air Force.
  • Howard hosts the Department of Defense Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, sponsored by the U.S. Army, where it leads interdisciplinary research in collaboration with other leading R1 research universities and industrial partners across the nation.

Global and Strategic Studies

  • The Howard University Center for African Studies is the only comprehensive National Resource Center (NRC) at an HBCU, as designated by the U.S. Department of Education. NRC’s lead research opportunities in international studies, languages, and international affairs.

Research Pioneers

Howard’s history of research leadership spans decades and disciplines and has often been led by trailblazing scholars and faculty members. Examples of this history are exemplified by the Howard pioneers in research listed below:

  • Dr. Charles Drew, who pioneered the blood plasma preservation technique which made effective blood banks possible and has saved countless lives, was a faculty member at Howard University for much of his career.
  • Research by Dr. Roland B. Scott, founding director of the Howard University Center for Sickle Cell Disease, helped lead to the passage of the National Sickle Cell Control Act of 1972, which, for the first time, provided Congressional authority to establish sickle cell research, education, and treatment programs.
  • Former faculty member and researcher Carter G. Woodson created what would become Black History Month.
  • Studies led by former Howard dean Cecile Hoover Edwards helped expose links between nutrition and health in Black Americans and pregnant women.
  • Research on microorganisms led by former faculty member Ruth Ella Moore, the first Black American to earn a doctorate in bacteriology, helped advance the evolution of antibiotics.

Howard ‘s leadership fosters research opportunities at other R1 research schools, HBCUs, and beyond, cementing its critical role as a leader and innovator in developing knowledge which benefits all of humanity.