CHAPEL HILL – Research at UNC-Chapel Hill means both big dollars and big impact in North Carolina and around the globe.

“Here at Carolina, we’re proud of the fact that we’re now the fifth-leading research university in the nation,” Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz says in the accompanying video.

“We’ll top $1 billion in research expenditures for the second year in a row – I think we’re probably going to come in around $1.2 billion,” Guskiewicz says. “And that’s in the absence of a school of engineering.

“It’s really special. But it’s not just the dollars that are important – it’s the impact of the research.”

UNC-Chapel Hill is widely known for its research in medicine, especially cancer. But Guskiewicz recounts some lesser-known research in the humanities and social sciences that also make a huge difference in human lives, such as:

• “Smart cities” designed by city and regional planners working with big data;
• Suicide prevention and attacking the opioid epidemic at the School of Social Work;
• The growing field of cybersecurity;
• And award-winning work in Malawi and Zambia by Dr. Myron “Mike” Cohen to prevent transmission of HIV.¹ 

Nearly all of the work aims to improve human life, says Guskiewicz, a neuroscientist who was awarded a MacArthur “genius grant” himself in 2011 for his innovative work on diagnosis, treatment and prevention of sport-related concussions.²

“I talk often about being not only the first of the public (universities), but we’re the most public of the publics – I say we’re passionately public at Carolina,” he says. “And if you look at the breadth of the research conducted here, it’s so often the case – the impact it has on humankind and improving the human condition.

“I could tell you a hundred great stories about the work being done here in terms of research. But again, we’re proud to be the leading global public research university.”

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¹ https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/myron-cohen-md/.
²https://www.macfound.org/fellows/7/.