Rankings
UMBC ranks at the nation’s highest level of research performance. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education has announced that UMBC has been placed into the category of doctoral universities with very high research activity, popularly known as Research 1 (or R1). UMBC is now ranked as one of only 146 R1 institutions nationally, including 107 public and 39 private universities. Read more here.
The UMBC social sciences are also highly ranked in many R&D fields. In the 2022 NSF Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey, UMBC social sciences rank #44 among all US universities and #30 among public universities based on federal funding in the social sciences. UMBC social sciences also rank #51 nationally and #30 among public universities for funding in the social sciences across all funding sources. The NSF-HERD survey collects information on R&D expenditures by field of research and source of funds and is the primary source of information on R&D expenditures at U.S. colleges and universities.
Key Research Areas
The Center for Social Science Scholarship emphasizes areas of research interest across the social sciences, such as civic and political participation, global patterns of labor and migration, educational access, the relationship between humans and the environment, human behavior and health equity across the lifespan, the social context of technology, and policy impact.
The Creative Achievement and Research Administration Team (CARAT) assists faculty members and departments in obtaining funding for their research and providing pre- and post-award administration. Current externally-funded social science research projects span economics, political science, public policy, sociology and anthropology, emergency health services, and more.
If you are a UMBC researcher considering submitting a grant proposal, large or small, visit CARAT to learn more.