Northwestern researchers have investigated everything from astrophysics to impacts of incarceration to “super-agers” over the past decade as the University continues to expand its research programming. The Office for Research announced in September the school has seen a 75% increase in research funding since 2014, and that amount jumped 5% in 2024 alone.
Research funding comes from a mix of federal investments, collaboration with other institutions and philanthropy. In the 2024 fiscal year, NU received $1.05 billion in overall research funding, more than $743.4 million of which came from federal grants and investment. In the event of a federal funding freeze, the future of these investments could be impacted.
$741.9 million of the funding went toward projects at Feinberg School of Medicine, including a $55 million investment for NU’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute from the National Institute of Health. Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, McCormick School of Engineering and university-wide research centers also brought in at least $70 million each.
In an email to The Daily, Vice President for Research Eric J. Perreault said in the past decade, the school has highlighted interdisciplinary research and invested in support for grant-writing and development.
“NU has focused on recruiting top-tier faculty and creating a collaborative research culture across disciplines, departments and schools,” Perreault wrote. “This culture encourages partnerships and large-scale research projects that attract significant external funding.”
In the 2024 fiscal year, NU researchers submitted 3,837 proposals — a jump from 3,575 in 2023. This reflects a steady increase in proposals submitted and chosen in the past decade, a process which can take months or years, including submitting, revising and undergoing review.
This process took more than two years for a team of McCormick researchers, led by Mechanical Engineering Profs. Ed Colgate and Kevin Lynch, who received a $26 million investment in June from the National Science Foundation. Colgate said the application process spanned more than two years and involved several lengthy proposals, a site visit to NU and giving panel presentations.
Over the next 5 years, the team will use the investment to build an Engineering Research Center for dexterous robots in collaboration with four other institutions. He noted that NU administration, including McCormick Dean Christopher Schuh, and the Office for Research, offered crucial support as the team showed how their project would increase innovation, bring in new faculty and move the field of robotics forward.
“We showed how we were taking a diverse group of people from five core institutions spread over a good chunk of the country and pulling them together to really share a vision and a plan,” Colgate said.
Colgate has been a part of the McCormick faculty since 1988. Though most of his prior research has not required this level of funding, he’s observed the evolution of NU’s research priorities and scale, he said.
He said the progress has been “a joyful thing to witness.”
“I can’t point to one single event or policy, but there has been a commitment to excellence, a lot of investment in infrastructure, and a commitment to hiring truly outstanding faculty and supporting them once they’re here,” Colgate said.
In his statement, Perrault added that the school has facilitated an “outstanding research ecosystem” that supports not only large scale research but also impactful theoretical and humanities research that requires less funding.
The research ecosystem extends into the Office of Undergraduate Research, which awards more than $1.5 million to hundreds of undergraduates each year. Because of funding agency parameters, this budget is not directly impacted by the University’s funding increase, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research Peter Civetta told The Daily. The atmosphere it cultivates, however, will benefit undergraduates in their studies and research, he said.
“The overall increase is wonderful in that it increases the quality and volume of research being done on campus, and students benefit from being exposed to that,” Civetta said.
In the 2025 fiscal year, the University has already seen an increase in proposals submitted and grants awarded compared to the 2024 fiscal year.
Perreault wrote that the Office for Research hopes to see more interdisciplinary research and real-world research applications moving forward. He noted evolving faculty interest drives research initiatives but that several topics, such as quantum information systems, synthetic biology and AI-accelerated science, are top-of-mind for research teams right now.
“Faculty excellence defines the University and broadly shapes the range of investigations we undertake,” Perreault wrote.
With technology and science landscapes constantly changing, Colgate said he expects some research fields will become “more or less unrecognizable” in the next decade.
NU will need a constant stream of innovation and creativity to keep up with the pace of change in academia and the political climate, he said.
“I expect there’ll be some massive challenges, but I think this is a university that’s up to it, and it’s going to meet those challenges,” Colgate said.
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