A Stronger NC State

In the spring of 2011, North Carolina State University embarked on “The Pathway to the Future,” our strategic plan for the next 10 years.

Back then, NC State was already the flagship STEM campus of the UNC System. As a land-grant institution, we had served our state in three different centuries. Nationally, we were known as a top public research university, a key vertex of the Research Triangle and a leader in engineering, veterinary medicine, agriculture and the sciences.

With “The Pathway to the Future,” we set out to be even more. And we succeeded — in teaching, research, innovation, infrastructure and culture. NC State is not only stronger because of the plan we made and the work we did; we are now understood to be one of the nation’s best universities.

Attracted by our success, some of the world’s leading companies — Apple, Cisco, Google — are flocking to Raleigh, NC. In the past 10 years, our city has been the No. 2 fastest-growing metro area in the country. We’ve risen together, and the world is taking notice.

Below, you can discover NC State’s success for yourself.

Research and Faculty

• In the period 2011 to 2020, NC State received close to 16,000 sponsored research awards, totaling $3.3 billion.
• Annual research expenditures stand at more than half a billion dollars, a 45% increase from $378 million in 2011.
• Our most recent annual research expenditures total, $549 million, was the highest in our university’s history.
• The National Science Foundation noted that NC State’s federal research expenditures saw a 65% increase in the past decade, outstripping all but one of its peers.
• In the past decade, our faculty have claimed major research awards, including the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, the Canada Gairdner International Award, the O. Max Gardner Award and the Wolf Prize in Agriculture.

The Partner of Choice

In the past decade, we have been sought out, time and again, by government agencies and other institutions to pursue research that matters:

• The National Security Agency (NSA) sponsored the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences for $71 million across five years. The lab has since been renewed for another $70 million.
• We’ve housed two National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers, FREEDM and ASSIST, tackling the smart grid and self-powered wearables, respectively. For a time, we were the only university in the country with two.
• The U.S. Department of Energy called on our university to lead a $140 million next-generation manufacturing institute, PowerAmerica, to bring together the brightest minds in the world of wide bandgap semiconductors.
• NC State has been directly involved in seven of the 14 institutes that make up Manufacturing USA, a nationwide network of 14 public-private institutes focusing on specific fields of manufacturing technology.
• We’re home to the Comparative Medicine Institute (CMI), comprising interdisciplinary teams of more than 190 faculty from 27 departments, six colleges and five universities.
• In 2020, the CMI expanded to include the Chemistry of Life program, which boasts more than 40 faculty from four different colleges.

Interdisciplinary Scholarship

As a public, land-grant university, we are called to address the complex challenges facing our world. In 2011, we launched the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program to assemble the diverse, interdisciplinary teams we needed to do that work.

More than 30 faculty proposals became eight dedicated interdisciplinary faculty clusters tied to NC State’s strengths; a further 12 were established in 2015. Those clusters have led to more than 80 faculty hires and the creation of three related centers: Geospatial Analytics; Genetic Engineering and Society; and the Center for Human Health and the Environment.

Support for Faculty

Excellence in research — and teaching — depends on recruiting, retaining and supporting talented faculty. Here are a few of our efforts to do just that:

• College Realignments: In July 2013, we established the new College of Sciences — home to the physical and chemical sciences, math and statistics, biological sciences and earth-system sciences — and realigned the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, cementing our status as a top STEM institution and a global leader in agriculture.
• New Professorships: More than 80 new endowed professorships have been created since 2011, in areas ranging from geospatial analytics to quantum computing. The total climbs to 100 if you count from the start of our Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign.
• University Faculty Scholars: Created in 2012, this program provides tangible support to outstanding early- and mid-career faculty; to date, nearly 200 faculty have received the designation and its accompanying salary increase.
• Chancellor’s Innovation Fund: With the support of Chancellor Woodson, this fund awards up to $50,000 to research projects that hold promise for commercialization. To date, more than 50 projects have received $3.7 million from the fund — and gone on to accrue $60 million in follow-on funding and $1.5 million in licensing revenue.

Student Success

• Since 2011, freshman applications for enrollment increased by 61% to 30,897.
• Average SAT scores for incoming students are now 1,337, up from 1,186; half of all incoming students are in the top 10% of their graduating high school class.
• NC State’s first-year retention rate in 2020 was 94.4%, up from 89.5% in 2011.
• The six- and five-year graduation rates now stand at 85% and 82%, up from 73% and 67%, respectively.
• The six-year graduation rate for doctoral students has increased to 65%.
• More than 100 of our students have earned national honors over the past five years, including Churchill, Fulbright, Gates, Goldwater, Truman and Udall awards.
• NC State is No. 3 among national research universities in producing Fulbright Scholars.

Academic and Student Affairs

In July 2012, NC State became one of the first universities to unite undergraduate academics and every form of student support under a single banner. The new Division of Academic and Student Affairs combines curricular and co-curricular activities, including everything from fully integrated academic advising to military and veteran services to student health, undergraduate research, career development and more.

In 2015, we created University College to further centralize student services and learning, and in 2020, we opened a dedicated Academic Success Center in newly renovated spaces within the D.H. Hill, Jr. Library.

Alternative Pathways

We’ve not only increased student retention and graduation rates; we’ve also created new ways for more students to get here — and more pathways for them to follow.

• Spring Connect: In 2018, we began bringing a cohort of 250 or more incoming first-year students to campus in the spring semester, rather than the fall, to ensure that even more of our competitive applicants can access NC State.
• Community College Collaboration (C3): We now partner with 13 regional community colleges to enroll transfer students from rural areas, low-to-moderate income families or first-generation backgrounds.
• Student Transition Enrollment Advising and Mentoring (STEAM): The STEAM programs helps rural students with a passion for agriculture get to NC State, with a summer session on campus and a first semester of coursework at a community college.

Graduate Student Success

Our graduate students are thriving, too. We’ve taken steps to support more of them during their time at NC State — and to guide them into their chosen career.

• Increased Funding: In 2020, we allocated $3.6 million to the Graduate School to fund more than 350 graduate students, including matches for several training grants.
• Accelerate to Industry (A2i): A new program helps connect graduate students with industry partners, especially those from Research Triangle Park and Centennial Campus. The program’s success has led to it being trademarked and expanded beyond NC State.

Commercialization and Impact

• Between 2011 and 2020, NC State’s research and innovation work has directly led to:
  • 2,033 commercialization agreements
  • 1,034 patents
  • 136 startups
  • 346 new products
• Our number of annual commercializations is now 141, up from 90 in 2010.
• NC State is No. 4 nationwide for startups launched and No. 8 for licenses issued, according to the Association of University Technology Managers.

Companies we’ve helped create include Wolfspeed — formerly CREE — and SAS, which generated $3 billion in revenue last year. Another NC State startup, Locus Biosciences, is advancing CRISPR research that began on our campus. In 2019, it executed a deal with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for a potential $818 million.

Our success in research commercialization and entrepreneurship are widely recognized. In 2017, the Milken Institute ranked NC State’s technology transfer work in the top 25 nationally. June 2020 analysis by the George W. Bush Institute ranks us No. 20 for innovation impact — and No. 5 in productivity.

Entrepreneurship

In 2018, we restructured the wealth of entrepreneurial activities, initiatives, programs and events at NC State under a new “alliance” model, creating NC State Entrepreneurship.

That work formalized our existing strength in helping students realize their ideas and start new businesses. Today, we’re one of just eight universities ranked in the top 20 for both undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs by the Princeton Review.

More than 4,000 students at NC State are enrolled in our entrepreneurship offerings, which span 13 departments and 8 colleges. When it comes time to launch, they can turn to our dedicated Wolfpack Investor Network, which boasts more than 140 members and 25 portfolio companies to date.

NC State is absolutely the best. I have profound respect for this institution.

Jeff Williams ’85

Chief Operating Officer, Apple

Advancement and Infrastructure

As NC State’s stature and reputation have risen, so too has the support of our alumni and friends. In October 2016, we publicly launched the Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign with the goal of raising $1.6 billion.

That goal was surpassed more than two years ahead of schedule.

In March 2019, we held our first ever Day of Giving. Our community responded with $13.5 million in gifts. In 2020, in the depths of the pandemic, they raised the bar to $23 million. This year, they our alumni and friends set a new national record for dollars raised in a single day by a university: $58,103,657.

• Since 2011, the rate of annual giving to NC State has nearly tripled.
• The number of annual donors has increased by 66%, from 20,918 to 34,759.
• NC State’s endowment has more than doubled since the launch of our strategic plan.