Philadelphia-area colleges spend millions of dollars on research in race for top Carnegie rankings

PHILADELPHIA BUSINESS JOURNAL, Feb. 25, 2021 — The University of Pennsylvania is one of four schools in the Philadelphia area to have an R1 ranking on the latest Carnegie Classification of Institutions list.

Several Greater Philadelphia universities are funneling millions of dollars into research in a bid to reach the upper echelons of the nation's higher education elite. 

Greater Philadelphia’s seven top-ranked research universities spent a combined $2.3 billion on research and development projects in fiscal year 2020, according to data from the National Science Foundation. Those schools spent $1.25 billion on research in fiscal year 2010, representing an 83% increase in spending over a decade. 

Local colleges have upped their research spending in recent years as they strive to reach the highest rating from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions — a prestigious ranking that outlines which universities rake in the most research dollars and graduate the most doctoral students. The R1 ranking, denoting “very high research activity” at doctoral-granting universities, is one of the most coveted designations a university can attain. R1 rankings attract outside investment, faculty and students to universities, making the rating a valuable asset as schools increasingly face declining enrollment and strained finances.

The Carnegie Classification is released once every three years, and the most recent rankings were finalized this month.

Of the 146 universities listed as R1 in the United States, there are four in the Philadelphia area: the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, the University of Delaware and Drexel University. Three others were listed as R2, a ranking that identifies doctoral-granting schools with high research activity: Villanova University, Rowan University and West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

The region’s R2 universities are ramping up spending on facilities, faculty and programs, inching closer to local research heavyweights. The presidents of these universities plan to draw new researchers and develop technology that could be an economic boon for Greater Philadelphia. 

Rowan University President Ali Houshmand knows his South Jersey college hasn’t quite met the criteria to be classified as a high research activity university. It doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying.

Rowan spent $26 million on research in 2020, nearly $10 million more than the school spent in fiscal year 2018. Houshmand plans to take Rowan’s research spending even higher – eventually to upwards of $90 million – and focus on specific areas where the university excels, such as life sciences and engineering. 

Rowan recently reached an agreement with Virtua Health to create a new academic health system, and with that deal comes an investment of $85 million from Virtua into an endowment to support the university. The university can pull 4.5% from that endowment annually to invest in research, and Rowan has committed to hiring 15 new faculty members and to build a 50,000-square-foot facility to house its researchers, Houshmand said.

The partnership with Virtua is expected to net Rowan more than $225 million in new research grants by 2032, university Provost Tony Lowman said in a statement.

At the heart of Rowan’s investment is the potential to attract top-notch research faculty who can develop intellectual property and support economic development in South Jersey, Houshmand said.

“This region, South Jersey — which, if it was a state, it would be bigger than Nebraska or New Mexico — deserves a first-class, world-class R1 university that becomes a giant economic engine to help the economy and at the same time be able to maintain the young minds here, to educate them, to become part of the economy,” Houshmand said. “They deserve it.”

Villanova University is similarly pursuing an R1 designation, and the school is boosting spending on facilities and faculty. 

The Carnegie Classification has "definitely" factored into Villanova’s decision to upgrade its engineering building, Villanova President Rev. Peter Donohue told the Philadelphia Business Journal in December. The $125 million project will add an additional 150,000 square feet of lab space, classrooms and faculty offices to the existing 90,000-square-foot Center for Engineering Education and Research. The expanded building will reopen in fall 2024. 

Expanding Villanova’s research facilities and hiring research faculty are paramount to being a research university, Donohue said.

“If we're in that classification, we really need to give them the tools they need to do their scholarship and research and provide those opportunities for them,” Donohue said. “It's just part of what we are now.”

Villanova had $25 million in research expenditures in fiscal year 2020, according to the National Science Foundation. For comparison, the university shelled out just over $10 million for research in fiscal 2010. 

Being a research university opens Villanova up to a different cohort of students that are interested in pursuing research, even as undergraduates, Donohue said. It also widens Villanova’s sphere of influence — the university had an influx of international students applying for its programs after it was listed among doctoral universities with high research activity, Donohue said.

One Philadelphia-area university that was designated as an R2 doesn’t have any ambitions to push for R1 classification. 

West Chester University of Pennsylvania found the classification to be a delightful surprise, and reaching R2 was not a strategic goal for the school, President Christopher Fiorentino said. 

West Chester primarily educates undergraduate students, with an undergraduate enrollment of more than 14,500, but the university has steadily increased the size of its master’s and doctoral cohorts in recent years. West Chester has also gradually increased its research expenditures from $5.6 million in 2010 to $6.4 million in 2020, according to the National Science Foundation. 

The university will continue to focus on undergraduates, but Fiorentino does expect the R2 rating to help West Chester secure additional funding and increase its volume of research. 

“I think one of the important takeaways is that this is not something that we were striving to do to change the nature of this institution,” Fiorentino said. “We are not going to change who we are. We just happen to have more people graduating in doctoral and master's programs and a higher level of research productivity related to our outstanding faculty.”

Fiorentino doesn’t want West Chester to become an R1 university. The jump from R2 to R1 would drastically change the school’s teacher-scholar model and affect the amount of time faculty spend with students, he said.

“I would say that no, there would be no strategy associated with trying to become an R1,” he said. “And frankly, if we were to find ourselves there someday, I'd be quite surprised.”