Research Month highlights University’s works

By Kelvin Childs

Research Month 2025 honors and celebrates the outstanding work Howard University’s research staff, faculty and students are doing in multiple specialties. And Howard’s recent R1 classification makes it even more special.

Following a kickoff reception April 1, events for the month include the HBCU CHIPS Network Conference 2025, April 3–4 at Armour J. Blackburn Center and the annual Research Symposium on April 24–25 at the Interdisciplinary Research Building.

Howard is the only HBCU with Research One (R1) Carnegie Classification, conferred in February. R1 is the highest level, conferred to schools that offer a full range of baccalaureate programs, award 50 or more doctorate degrees each year and receive $40 million or more annually in federal funding for research. Howard University produces the most undergraduates who go on to earn a doctoral degree.

Howard’s research endeavors include STEM fields, health and medicine, engineering and architecture, social sciences and humanities, and interdisciplinary research. Much of it looks at disparities.

On the way to R1 classification, in 2023 Howard entered a $90 million contract with the Department of Defense to lead a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) with several other HBCUs.

Howard has numerous legendary researchers, such as Roland B. Scott (M.D., ’34), who founded the University’s Center for Sickle Cell Disease, the first in the nation. Psychologists Kenneth Bancroft Clark (B.A., ’35; M.S., ’36) and Mamie Phipps Clark (B.S., ’38, magna cum laude) conducted pioneering research into children’s attitudes about race with the famous doll experiments. Their expert testimony was crucial to the unanimous Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that struck down segregation in the public schools.

You can support Howard’s research with a donation, here: Impact Howard Research.