The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education designated ACU as a level two research school.

The designation is given to schools that over an average of three years spend more than $5 million on research and give at least 20 research doctorates a year. ACU has spent an average of $8.18 million and given 68 research doctorates, said Dr. Kay Tindle, vice president for research.

“It’s really an identification of what we’ve already been doing, right?” said Tindle, “If you say, what does an R2 institution look like? Well, look around. We have undergraduates that have opportunities to engage in research at levels that other institutions maybe don’t have.”

The majority of research is devoted to the NEXT lab, a molten salt research reactor, set to go critical in 2027. Outside of the lab, research is focused on different areas of hard sciences.

Less than 10% of schools receive an R2 designation, only 133 schools received this designation this year including the private schools, Villanova, TCU, Marquette and Wake Forest.

Dr. Phil Schubert, president of the university, said the school does not receive anything from the classification, the designation is mostly a way to recruit students and faculty and show them how much research the school is doing.

“Typically the highest caliber faculty are often going to be interested in the opportunity to be involved in research,” Schubert said. “Those are things that are stimulating and career-shaping.”