Research at UCLA

As one of the leading public research universities in the world, UCLA is consistently ranked nationally in the top five institutions for research funding with Year 2007 awards totaling over $900M.

Download the 2008 Fact Sheet which outlines many of the accomplishments of UCLA's research enterprise.

UCLA's great strength lies in its ability to address significant interdisciplinary research challenges. Research at UCLA has a long tradition of interdisciplinary collaborations. Projects that cross academic boundaries flourish at UCLA, where faculty from the sciences, engineering and medicine, and a full spectrum of academic departments and professional schools work together on a single university campus.

The University's location within a large urban area permits cross cutting research to flourish across a broad range of societal, health, environmental and educational issues. Los Angeles also presents unique, diverse and multicultural opportunities in the arts.

UCLA's size and broad research base give its research community a natural advantage in addressing important societal and technological problems. Among the many distinguished UCLA faculty are nine National Medal of Science winners, deserving of special recognition by reason of their contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences.

The 2000 Medal of Science winner, Geography Professor Jared Diamond, was recognized for "exceptionally creative scholarship, including seminal research in physiology, ecology, conservation biology, and history; for his outstanding role in communicating science by explaining technical advances in widely understandable terms, and for his overwhelming dedication to science's role in building a better future".