by Matthew Smith
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work maintained its top-five status in the National Science Foundation’s latest Higher Education Research and Development Survey.
The School held on to its No. 4 ranking, reporting $19,167,000 in research and development expenditures in 2023 — an increase of nearly $210,000 from its 2022 total. That placed Carolina in the top four of all spending along with Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, Columbia University School of Social Work and the University of Maryland School of Social Work.
The annual survey records research and development (R&D) expenditures — funds that are spent for activities specifically allocated to produce research outcomes — led by School faculty, researchers, postdoctoral scholars, students, and research institute and centers’ staff.
The NSF lists institutions in two categories, including total R&D expenditures and federal R&D expenditures. Total expenditures include funds from federal, state and local governments, businesses, nonprofits, institutional spending, medical school spending, clinical trials, and more. Federal expenditures from field and federal agencies include the NSF, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and others. The School also ranked fifth in federal spending alone.
“As a School we are always honored to be recognized on these types of lists, but I’m not surprised that our researchers have led us to another top ranking in the latest HERD Survey,” Dean Ramona Denny-Brinson said. “Our researchers are some of the best in their field and uphold that reputation with research that betters families, supports health interventions, and strengthens the social work workforce locally, nationally and abroad. I’m proud of what they’re accomplishing, not because of a number, but because of how their work positively changes the lives of others.”
Research designations
As one of the most productive research institutions in the world, Carolina holds an R1 designation.
The designation is a term used by the Carnegie Foundation, a U.S.-based education policy and research center, to categorize doctoral granting universities with the highest performance in key areas associated with research and development.
Those key areas include extramural research expenditures, number of doctoral degrees awarded, and the number of research staff such as postdoctoral employees, research associates, research faculty and research assistants, among other criteria. As of November 2024, there were 146 R1 universities.
Overall, Carolina ranked ninth in the nation — up from 12th a year ago — for largest research volume and annual expenditures. Research spending at Carolina topped $1.55 billion, UNC Research announced, “fueling the state’s economy, powering new discoveries, driving innovation, and creating a better quality of life for people in North Carolina and beyond.”
The $1.5 billion in expenditures marked the eighth consecutive year the University’s research activity totaled over $1 billion, with research expenditures increasing across all UNC funding sources.
Research impact
Work led by researchers at the School has a profound impact across communities in North Carolina and beyond in the areas of health, economic security, children and family well-being, long-term care, and research systems.
Some examples of School-led projects meeting HERD’s criteria that received funding in 2023 include:
- Hsun-Ta Hsu, “Understanding Personal, Social Network, and Neighborhood Environmental Contributors to Firearm Access and Violence Among Young Adults”: This three-year, $1.41 million study funded by the Center of Disease Control’s Injury Prevention and Control Research and State and Community–Based Programs will investigate how individual, social network and neighborhood environmental characteristics are associated with youth experiencing homelessness firearm risks and examine the role their social network may play in moderating these risks either by attenuating or exacerbating individual and neighborhood influences.
- Amy Blank Wilson, “Forging New Paths: Building Interventions to Treat Criminogenic Needs in Community Based Mental Health Settings”: A four-year, $725,000 project funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health. The project brings together a team of nationally recognized experts to engage a deployment-focused approach to the development and preliminary testing of a new, scalable and sustainable, group-based, criminogenic (factors that likely cause criminal behaviors)-focused cognitive behavioral therapy intervention developed specifically for use among people with serious mental illnesses in community-based mental health settings.
- Tess Thompson, “Dyadic Analysis of Unmet Social Needs Among Breast and Gynecologic Patients and Their Informal Caregivers”: This five-year, $1.75 million study funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute focuses on female patients with breast and gynecologic cancer and their informal caregivers to document the unmet needs of these pairs, analyze their experiences, interest and preferences for mental health and social need interventions, and explore neighborhood factors, social needs, and depressive symptoms within the pairs. This study will provide first-of-its-kind information about the biopsychosocial effects of unmet social needs among female patients with cancer and their caregivers.
Learn more about the University’s overall research impact at UNC Research.
