Research HBCUs Launch Association to Foster Collaboration

A group of historically Black research colleges and universities announced the launch of a new coalition, the Association of HBCU Research Institutions, on Wednesday.

The new association includes 14 HBCUs with R-2 status, the Carnegie Foundation classification for high research activity, and Howard University, the only HBCU with R-1 status, or “very high” research activity. The goal of the association is to advance research at HBCUs by growing campuses’ research infrastructure, securing research funding, recruiting scholars and expanding student research opportunities. The group also strives to help R-2 HBCUs work toward R-1 status, according to a memo from Howard. Together, the new association’s member institutions account for half of all federal research funding competitively awarded to HBCUs.

News of the launch coincided with the association’s first research symposium, Expanding the Research Mission of HBCUs, which convened higher education and industry leaders and policymakers on Howard’s campus.

“Today is not just an announcement, but a declaration that HBCUs are not only contributors to research and innovation, but also leaders shaping a new era of discovery, reimagining both the solutions and the systems that drive research,” Wayne A. I. Frederick, Howard University’s interim president, president emeritus and Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery, said in the memo.

The association will operate out of the offices of the Association of American Universities, an organization of research institutions, and will benefit from a three-year, $1 million grant from the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative as well as technical assistance from Harvard University’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

Ruth Simmons, senior adviser to Harvard’s president on engagement with HBCUs and a former president of Brown University, Smith College and Prairie View A&M University, said in the memo that the association is “bringing institutions that have too often worked in isolation into sustained collaboration with one another and with the country’s leading research universities.”