These items are for reference and inclusion in research grant proposals. They will be updated as new information becomes available.
Comprehensive description of the University of Florida
Red text will be updated as new information becomes available.
The University of Florida (UF) is a major, public, comprehensive, land-grant, research university. The state’s oldest and most comprehensive university, UF is among the nation’s most academically diverse public universities. UF traces its beginnings to a small seminary in 1853. It opened its doors in Gainesville in 1906 with 102 students. Today, it is one of the most comprehensive and academically diverse universities in the nation, with an enrollment of some 52,000 students annually. UF is home to 16 colleges and more than 170 research centers and institutes and UF offers nearly 300 graduate degree programs. Only five other universities nationwide have as many programs of study on one campus as the University of Florida.
UF has a long history of established programs in international education, research and service. It is one of only 18 public, land-grant universities that belong to the Association of American Universities, the higher-education organization comprising the top 62 public and private institutions in North America. UF is consistently ranked among the nation’s top universities: No. 5 in U.S. News & World Report “Top Public Universities” (2022) and No. 2 in Kiplinger’s “Best Values in Public Colleges” (2019). Additionally, UF ranked No. 6 in the New York Times list of universities that do the most to help low-income students (2017) and No. 11 worldwide universities for U.S. patents issued (2020).
UF has nearly 5,700 faculty members with distinguished records in teaching, research and service, including 37 Eminent Scholar chairs and 45 faculty elections to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, or the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Awards include a Fields Medal, two Pulitzer Prizes, NASA’s top award for research, and Smithsonian Institution’s conservation award.
UF’s students are accomplished. Over 96 percent of incoming freshmen score above the national average on standardized exams. Students admitted for the fall 2021 freshman class had an average 4.51 GPA and an average SAT score of 1392. The freshman retention rate of 97 percent is among the highest in the country and 67 percent of UF freshmen graduate in four years; 88 percent graduate in six years. UF has a focus on a diverse student body. Among AAU public universities, UF ranks second in bachelor’s degrees and fifth in doctoral degrees awarded to African-American students in 2015.
UF is a leader in research and discoveries which improve the lives of individuals throughout the state, nation and world. UF’s research funding totaled a record $900.7 million in the 2020 fiscal year. UF conducts over $51 million of industrial/company-sponsored research annually. This level of collaborative industry/academic research places UF among the top 25 public research universities in the United States for overall industrial sponsored research. These research collaborations occur across the entire campus, in diverse fields that include engineering, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and medicine, as well as the physical and social sciences. Research into improving education techniques and learning outcomes has also been sponsored by a variety of companies, particularly in areas pertaining to improving the education of students from under-represented and low-income demographic groups. Industrial funding for UF research comes from Global 1000 companies as well as local and regional start-ups and corporate entrepreneurs, all of which seek to leverage the expertise of UF’s world-class faculty to promote discoveries that will benefit the health and overall well-being of people worldwide.
The university is recognized as an international leader in technology commercialization. UF’s Office of Technology Licensing signed a record 261 licenses and options and launched 13 startup companies in fiscal year 2018-19, topping the previous year’s total of 226 licenses by 15%. According to the most recent statistics from the Association of University Technology Managers, UF ranked eighth in the nation for startups in the 2013-14 fiscal year (16), and seventh for licenses and options completed with companies commercializing researchers’ discoveries (147 – includes agreements by UF OTL and Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences). The university has a 2,000-acre campus and more than 900 buildings (including 170 with classrooms and laboratories). The UF residence halls have a total capacity of some 7,500 students and the five family housing villages house more than 1,000 married and graduate students. The university’s current facilities have a book value of more than $1 billion and a replacement value of $2 billion.
Overall, UF’s economic impact on the state in fiscal year 2017-2018 was $16.91 billion in industry output or sales revenues, $10.4 billion in contribution to State Gross Domestic Product, and 134,609 full-time and part-time jobs. That puts UF’s impact on par with the state’s trucking industry, its grocery store sector – that includes Publix and Winn-Dixie – or the total of all home construction activities in Florida.
College boilerplate
Short description of the college for a general audience
The Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering at the University of Florida houses one of the largest and most dynamic engineering programs in the nation. Curriculum offered across nine departments, 15 degree programs, and more than 20 centers and institutes produces leaders and problem-solvers who take a multidisciplinary approach to innovative and human-centered solutions. Students, faculty and alumni are hailed as New Engineers who aim to transform the way we live, work and play. The college produces inventions at twice the national average – and startups at five times the national average – for every research dollar spent. Engineering is the largest professional school, the second largest college, and one of the top three research units at UF. Established in 1910, the college was named after Distinguished Alumnus Dr. Herbert Wertheim in 2015.
UF Engineering Innovation Institute
The University of Florida Engineering Innovation Institute fosters a culture of innovation among faculty, students and staff of the College of Engineering. The Institute serves as a nexus of engineering innovation education and experiential programs extending across the spectrum of creative discovery and invention, to the transition of UF engineering technologies and innovative students to the marketplace. The Institute produces leaders with engineering and innovation skills to attack the world’s most daunting problems and change the world. The Institute’s primary program elements are Creativity and Entrepreneurship built on the foundation of the College’s research programs. The College’s inter-disciplinary research institutes, and its broad spectrum of Departments and Schools, provide a unique platform upon which Creativity and Entrepreneurship education produce many of our next generation innovation leaders, whether they work in the private, academic, public service, non-profit, or government / military sectors.
UF Engineering Leadership Institute
The UF Engineering Leadership Institute focuses on creating leaders for a new world where technology plays a major role and the need for principle based, character focused leaders is now more than ever demanded by our country and the world. For the US to continue to lead the world in engineering and innovation, engineers must take their rightful role in becoming leaders in all aspects of society – in industry, education, government, and the military. The UF College of Engineering is dedicated to being a leader in this field. The Engineering Leadership Institute will change the view of and by engineers about their role as leaders in modern society. The Institute provides the experience, the educational framework, and the expectation within students, faculty, and the profession that engineers are to be leaders, with a strong focus on integrity and character. Active engagement of world renowned leaders at all levels establishes the Institute as a nexus for leaders to share their experiences, where leaders can engage with students and faculty to instill values and learn from creative minds, and where aspiring leaders can come to examine a life in leadership and establish their own life plans to achieve their goals.
HiPerGator supercomputer
The University of Florida operates a state of the art infrastructure to support all aspects of computing related to research. A team of 12 permanent staff is dedicated to operate the HiPerGator supercomputer with over 50,000 computer cores, 3 PB of fast storage, and a 100 Gigabit/s connection to the Internet. The staff provides training and consulting for faculty and their research associates.
College buildings & information
The Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering has over one million gross square feet of facilities. Approximately 75% of the space is assignable square footage utilized for research, administration, classroom and conference space. Most of this space is located on UF’s main campus. The locations of the Engineering buildings that reside on the main campus are in three general areas, typically referred to as:
- North Campus (South of Stadium Rd and North of Museum Rd)
- South Campus (South of Museum Rd and North of UF Health/Shands)
- Surge Area (South of Performing Arts Center and North of Archer Rd.)
The Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering also has 25 other buildings and facilities located off-campus that include the following locations:
- East Campus (Located on Waldo Road at 23rd Ave intersection)
- Solar Park (South of Archer Rd on SW 23rd Terrace)
- Coastal Lab (Located on 6th street, South of Depot Rd)
- REEF Lab (Located in Shalamar, FL adjacent to Eglin Air Force Base)