Research

Goal: Become a preeminent research university

Notre Dame is becoming one of the preeminent research universities in the world. Here are some notable recent achievements toward this goal:

  • External Research Funding
    Notre Dame’s research awards in April 2010 exceeded the $100-million mark for the first time in its history, fulfilling a goal Father Jenkins set during his 2005 inaugural address. The total reflects an increase in the number of grants proposed, an increase in the size of those proposals, and an increase in the number and size of grants that are winning funding.
  • Harper Hall
    A 55,000 square-foot building just south of campus, Harper Hall is a novel partnership between Notre Dame and the Indiana University School of Medicine that opened in 2011. Faculty members from both institutions collaborate on research in cancer biology, with an emphasis on such areas as genomics and proteomics, and breast, prostate and colon cancers.
  • Innovation Park
    The state’s 19th research park helps transform faculty and student research innovations into viable marketplace ventures. Opened in 2009, the $13 million facility just south of campus with build-to-suit offices, custom wet and dry laboratories and virtually unlimited network band is home to a variety of start-up businesses and social ventures.
  • Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery
    This research consortium seeks to discover and develop the next nanoscale logic device, which will be the basic building block of future computer technology. A partnership of labs and universities with technology businesses, the center led by Notre Dame was chosen as the fourth site for this prestigious research in 2008.
  • Notebaert Fellowships
    A wide-ranging initiative in the University’s Graduate School, the Richard and Peggy Notebaert Premier Fellowships provides significant financial support to the most promising doctoral students enrolled at Notre Dame. A $10 million gift in 2008 builds momentum in efforts to develop a great University where research and graduate education are taken seriously.
  • Stinson-Remick Hall
    This 160,000-square-foot facility opened in 2010, housing a nano technology research center, a 9,000-square-foot semiconductor processing and device fabrication clean room, and an undergraduate interdisciplinary learning center. Engineering faculty members seek to develop new energy technologies, devices on the nanometer scale, and new materials for nuclear energy and energy efficiency uses to meet a compelling international challenge.
  • Strategic Academic Planning Committee (SAPC) grants
    Notre Dame invested $80 million in internal financial resources to support two phases of integrated research projects. The initiative enhances efforts in existing college-level strategic plans by investing significant new funding in transformative proposals that further enhance research excellence and address the most pressing issues of our time.