Duke

Magnifying glass with flytraps

Interdisciplinary Approach

collaboration

Duke offers a rich array of academic programs that cross traditional boundaries, build on its strength as an interdisciplinary research university, and emphasize partnerships with community organizations.

incubators

The university’s institutes, initiatives and centers complement the collaborative work of faculty and students across campus. They serve as incubators of innovation in research, teaching and community engagement.

education

More than half of Duke undergraduates and nearly one-fifth of graduate and professional students take part in university-wide interdisciplinary education initiatives each year.

Two people in lab coats and protective eyewear working in a science lab.

Research

Funding

Student walking on Chapel Drive while reading a book.

Finding Funding

The Office for Research & Innovation provides this extensive, online database of internal and external funding opportunities as a resource for the entire Duke University research community.

Donald McDonnell, PhD looks at plates with students in a lab

Connect With a Foundation

The Office of Foundation Relations strives to make the entire foundation funding process seamless for faculty and administrative projects.

Translational Funding

Translational funding provides support to accelerate the development of research innovations, through an existing company or through a new venture.

Supporting Duke’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Duke Capital Partners seeks the most audacious Duke entrepreneurs, investors and students to build the startups that solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

Research Support

Two researchers in white lab coats having a discussion in a lab with laptops open.

Research Guidance

The Office of Research Support (ORS) manages pre-award research administration and certain post-award functions for campus schools, including proposal review, grant and contract negotiation, compliance, and implementation of research policies.

Close up of researcher wearing blue gloves holding a test tube in a lab.

student support

Undergraduate Research Support (URS) Office promotes undergraduate research in collaboration with faculty, community and campus partners and offers programming to help students identify research opportunities.

Green lights on a rack of servers in a datacenter

Data Support

This multiyear, faculty-driven program improves computational and data services across identified priorities, allowing scholars to focus on their research.

Nursing students and professor stand around a medical mannequin baby with an over-mouth oxygen support.

Science and Human Health

Services

Students writing notes while observing cactus plants.

Academics Making a Difference

headshot of Duke historian, Edward Triplett
headshot of Duke business professor, Christopher Eaglin
Nanthia Suthana adjusting a headset on a person with a pink cover on their head.
Two researchers with glasses on looking at a bright screen in a dark lab

Where the Research Happens

Duke’s research spans across its 12 schools, across and through multiple departments and centers. We’re known for combining disciplines to find novel approaches to problem-solving.

Two Students are studying Da Vinci by examining publications that were published around the time of his work.

Trinity School of Arts and Sciences

Our programs are defined by the university’s culture of cross-disciplinary research and education. As a result, the whole of Duke serves as a resource for the arts, sciences, and social sciences. Our research informs and deepens student and faculty exploration of artistic expression, natural sciences, global cultural themes, and the university’s goal of knowledge in service of society.

Duke Divinity school building aerial photo

Duke Divinity School

In addition to robust faculty scholarship and publishing, Duke Divinity supports interdisciplinary research in clergy health, the arts, leadership formation, and thriving rural communities.

Four students sitting around a laptop in a lounge at DKU

Duke-Kunshan University (DKU)

Duke Kunshan University’s interdisciplinary framework draws on multiple disciplines and integrates knowledge and research methodologies.

Three students in lab coats working at a lab bench

Duke-National University Singapore School of Medicine

With our strategic focus on diseases that are prevalent in Southeast Asia, our five Signature Research Programmes enable our research faculty to pursue multidisciplinary research in basic and translational science to help address some of the leading public health concerns, including aging, cancer, cardiometabolic, infectious and neurodegenerative diseases.

Two students walking out of the Fuqua School of business at dusk

Fuqua School of Business

Connecting our research faculty with practitioners in a range of sectors, Fuqua’s centers draw out the strengths in people with different knowledge sets in ways that create new perspectives for our scholarship and teaching.

Three students participating in a law class—the one in the middle pointing at an easel with a pen

Duke Law School

Duke Law School is home to 16 centers, institutes, and programs in which faculty engage in cutting-edge research and education on subjects of critical importance to the law, public policy, and society.

A professor explores a stream bed with a group of students looking on

Nicholas School of the Environment

Nicholas School research spans more than 40 disciplines in 16 broad-based focal areas. We apply our research expertise to determine solutions to the most pressing environmental issues facing our world.

Engineering students stand around a group of robots on the quad

Pratt School of Engineering

Duke Engineering is a leader in defining and advancing the high-impact fields that will develop solutions to the biggest challenges facing society and the planet.

An over-the-shoulder photo of two people in a conference room engaging in conversation

Sanford School of Public Policy

Faculty members collaborate across disciplines to explore questions relating to income inequality, obesity and hunger, energy policy, child neglect and abuse, access to health care, democratization, foreign policy and global concerns.

Four students dissecting a brain in class

Duke University School of Medicine

The combined efforts of the school’s basic and clinical faculty members in 26 departments, and numerous centers, institutes and initiatives make Duke one of the largest biomedical research enterprises in the country with $1 billion in sponsored research expenditures annually. 

Two healthcare professionals work at a desk on a computer with a third on Zoom on one of the two monitors

Duke School of Nursing

The Duke University School of Nursing’s Center for Nursing Research (CNR) provides faculty, students, and Duke University Health System nurses with the resources to transform nursing and healthcare through impactful research.

Hands in purple cloves touch electronic parts covering a table in a lab with wires running up

Duke Science & Technology

doing good

Beyond Research

Ventures

Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship helps launch ventures to tackle big challenges.

To Market

The Office for Translation and Commercialization works closely with Duke innovators, industrial partners and the venture community to transfer technologies from the lab to the market and ensure societal impact of Duke innovations.

Out In The World

Extended fingers grasp a small containers that contain metamaterial satellite antennas

real-time satellite

Michael Boyarsky’s metamaterial satellite antennas enhance operations for many industries, from farming to natural disaster prediction.

Four people in suits at an innovation fair looking at a table with a device made of tubes.

oxygenator catheter

This Duke startup develops and commercializes a minimally-invasive catheter-based oxygenator.

Man wearing blue-colored latex gloves while working in a lab

bone repair

A professor and a post-doc brought to market an injectable gel-like product that speeds up bone injury recovery.