Зерттеу университеті: Міссиясы мен даму тарихы

University committed to research as a central part of its mission

A research university or a research intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of knowledge production", along with "intergenerational knowledge transfer and the certification of new knowledge" through the awarding of doctoral degrees, and continue to be "the very center of scientific productivity". They can be public or private, and often have well known brand names. Undergraduate courses at many research universities are often academic rather than vocational and may not prepare students for particular careers, but many employers value degrees from research universities because they teach fundamental life skills such as critical thinking. Globally, research universities are overwhelmingly public institutions, while some countries like the United States and Japan also have well known private research institutions.

The concept of the research university first arose in early 19th century Prussia in Germany, where Wilhelm von Humboldt championed his vision of Einheit von Lehre und Forschung (the unity of teaching and research), as a means of producing an education that focused on the main areas of knowledge (the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) rather than on the previous goals of the university education, which was to develop an understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness. Roger L. Geiger, "the leading historian of the American research university," has argued that "the model for the American research university was established by five of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution (Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Columbia); five state universities (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and California); and five private institutions conceived from their inception as research universities (MIT, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Chicago)." The American research university first emerged in the late 19th century, when these fifteen institutions began to graft graduate programs derived from the German model onto undergraduate programs derived from the British model. Most importantly, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, and Princeton (along with Birmingham and Cambridge in the UK) directly participated in the creation of the first nuclear weapons (the Manhattan Project). Besides that, Columbia and Harvard were instrumental in the early development of the American film industry (Hollywood), MIT and Stanford were leaders in building the American military–industrial complex and developing artificial intelligence, and Berkeley and Stanford played a central role in the development of Silicon Valley. The "most prestigious group of research universities" in the United States is the Association of American Universities. Since the 1960s, American research universities, especially the leading American public research university system, the University of California, have served as models for research universities around the world. Having one or more universities based on the American model (including the use of English as a lingua franca) is a badge of "social progress and modernity" for the contemporary nation state. The Americans' continued dominance into the early 21st century has forced their European counterparts to confront the urgent need for reform to avoid "declining into an advanced form of feeder colleges for the best American universities."

The QS World University Ranking for 2021 included 1002 research universities. The region with the highest number was Europe, with 39.8%, followed by Asia/Pacific with 26.7%, the US and Canada with 15.6%, Latin America with 10.8% and the Middle East and Africa with 7%. All regions except the Middle East and Africa were represented in the top 100. The largest number of new entrants to the rankings were from East Asia and Eastern Europe, followed by Southern Europe. By individual country, the US has the most institutions with 151, followed by the UK with 84, China with 51, and Germany with 45. The top 200 shows a similar pattern with the US having 45 universities, the UK 26 and Germany 12. By comparison, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (2015) identifies 115 US universities as "Doctoral Universities: Highest Research Activity" and a further 107 as "Doctoral Universities: Higher Research Activity", while Altbach estimated that there were around 220 research universities in the US in 2013. The Academic Ranking of World Universities shows a similar distribution, with 185 of their 500 ranked institutions in 2020 coming from Europe, 161 from the Americas, 149 from Asia/Oceania and five from Africa. All regions except Africa are represented in the top 100, although the Americas are represented solely by universities from the United States and Canada. In 2023, the US has the most universities in the top 500 from a single country, 120, followed by China with 98, the UK with 38 and Germany with 31. The top 200 shows the similar pattern: the US with 61 followed by China with 36 and the UK with 20. The 2024 Times Higher Education only gives a breakdown by country and only for its top 200; this again has the U. S. at the top with 56, followed by the UK with 25, Germany with 21, and China with 13. The top 200 features one university from Africa, the University of Cape Town in South Africa, but none from Latin America. The U. S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Ranking 2021 gives numbers by country for the 1500 universities ranked from 86 countries: the U. S. is again top, with 255, followed by China with 176 and the UK with 87. The 2020 CWTS Leiden Ranking includes 1,176 universities in the rankings from 65 countries: China tops the list for the first time, with 204, followed by the U. S. with 198, the UK with 58 and Germany with 54.