A cluster of blue and white spikes protrude from a black background.

The University of Illinois Chicago received $509 million in research funding during the 2023 fiscal year – an all-time high for Chicago’s only public research university. The awards funded more than 3,400 projects spanning from the development of new medical treatments and evidence-based policies for violence prevention and sustainable cities to innovative research on health disparities, urban climate, manufacturing technologies and diversity in STEM education.

  • $ 509 M in sponsored awards received.

  • $ 418 M in research expenditures .

  • 3,451 research awards received.

  • 11 % funding increase since 2022.

  • 49 % funding increase since 2018.

  • 74 % of total funding came from federal sponsors.

“Surpassing the half-billion-dollar milestone in research funding is a clear marker of the exceptional research program at the University of Illinois Chicago and the vitality of our mission to create knowledge that transforms the world. As a public university with 54% of undergraduates who are Pell recipients, this funding enables us to offer students from all backgrounds the opportunity to participate in world-class research. The funding also reflects our commitment to creating positive and enduring impact in science and society.”

Marie Lynn Miranda  |  Chancellor, University of Illinois Chicago
Two lines reflecting increases in research funding and expenditures from 2018 to 2023, both lines are increasing. Bubbles to the sides of the graph say

“Our remarkable growth in research funding over the past five years highlights the breadth and depth of research at UIC, from the laboratory to the community. These awards support researchers from education, the humanities and public policy to the physical sciences, engineering and biomedicine as they make important discoveries and collaborate in addressing the most important questions and challenges of our time.”

Joanna Groden  |  Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Illinois Chicago
A colored circle representing the proportion of funding received from federal, private, state and other sources.

Almost three-quarters of UIC research funding in fiscal year 2023 came from federal sources, led by $202 million from the National Institutes of Health. Other top sponsors included the National Science Foundation ($32 million), the U.S. Department of Defense ($21 million), the U.S. Department of Energy ($16 million) and the State of Illinois ($56 million). Private sponsors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bloomberg Foundation, awarded $70 million to UIC for research.

In addition to the $509 million in research funding, UIC reported more than $37 million in revenue from 282 active licenses of its intellectual property in the 2023 fiscal year. Read more at the UIC Office of Technology Management.

New UIC projects funded in fiscal year 2023 included:

A bar graph showing the highest ranking colleges by total research awards in 2023.

The College of Medicine led all UIC colleges with $209 million in funding, followed by the School of Public Health ($54 million), College of Engineering ($45 million), College of Liberal Arts and Sciences ($45 million), College of Applied Health Sciences ($24 million) and College of Pharmacy ($21 million).

Three UIC researchers received the prestigious NSF CAREER grant for early career development: Alessandra Eustaquio, who explores drug discovery and development from natural sources such as microorganisms; Vishesh Jain, who conducts research in probability, combinatorics and theoretical computer science; and Xiaorui Sun, who studies the design and analysis of algorithms.

Read about the UIC faculty members who received the most research funding in 2023.

A man in a conference hall points at a scientific poster while another man in the foreground listens.

Awards support research not only by UIC’s diverse array of 3,000 faculty members, but also our student body of 7,316 graduate students and 22,107 undergraduates, as well as 271 postdoctoral researchers.

UIC students are significant contributors to research on campus. At the 2023 Undergraduate Research Forum, more than 300 students presented projects on subjects ranging from AI cancer detection and digital repression in Russia and China to corporate front groups and queer identity in Filipino American culture.