Universities Research Association

Formation	1965
Headquarters	Washington, D.C., United States
Location	United States Italy Japan United Kingdom
Membership	90
Council of Presidents, Chair	Garnett S. Stokes (2023)[1] President, University of New Mexico
President and CEO	John C. Mester[1]
Website	URA

The Universities Research Association is a non-profit association of more than 90 research universities, primarily but not exclusively in the United States. It has members also in Japan, Italy, and in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1965 at the behest of the President's Science Advisory Committee and the National Academy of Sciences to build and operate Fermilab, a National Accelerator Laboratory. Today, the mission of URA is "to establish and operate in the national interest unique laboratories and facilities for research, development, and education in the physical and biological sciences to expand the frontiers of knowledge, foster innovation, and promote the education of future generations of scientists."

History

The President's Science Advisory Committee and a sister group of the United States Atomic Energy Commission joined forces in 1962 to "assess the future needs in high-energy accelerator physics." The panel's recommendations, issued in 1963, included the need to immediately commence construction and design on a series of cutting-edge, high-energy proton accelerators to ensure that the United States remained at the forefront of this growing set of technologies and the science they permitted. An additional recommendation called for a new administrative construct to ensure robust participation of experts from a broad swath of the Nation’s universities. In early 1965 the National Academy of Sciences addressed this last recommendation by sponsoring a meeting of presidents from twenty-five major research universities to discuss the management of the accelerator facility that would later become the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). The meeting eventually resulted in the decision to form the Universities Research Association, with 34 original members, to build and manage the new accelerator facility. URA filed its articles of incorporation on June 21, 1965. J. C. Warner, president of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, served as URA’s first president.

URA has been involved in complex scientific endeavors, including the development of the Tevatron at Fermilab, early activities related to the Super-Conducting Supercollider, Pierre Auger Cosmic Observatory, the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF), and the associated Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), and involvement in the Honeywell International-led National Technology and Engineering Solutions at Sandia (NTESS) that manages and operates Sandia National Laboratories. Current major projects of the association include supporting Fermilab through a partnership with the University of Chicago and coordinating U.S. support of the Pierre Auger Cosmic Observatory.

Members

United States

Alabama

• University of Alabama

Arizona

• Arizona State University
• University of Arizona

California

• California Institute of Technology
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, Irvine
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, Riverside
• University of California, San Diego
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• Stanford University

Colorado

• Colorado State University
• University of Colorado Boulder

Connecticut

• Yale University

Florida

• Florida State University
• University of Florida

Georgia

• Georgia Institute of Technology

Illinois

• University of Chicago
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Northern Illinois University
• Northwestern University
• Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Indiana

• Indiana University
• University of Notre Dame
• Purdue University

Iowa

• Iowa State University
• University of Iowa

Kansas

• Kansas State University

Kentucky

• University of Kentucky

Louisiana

• Louisiana State University
• Tulane University

Maryland

• Johns Hopkins University
• University of Maryland, College Park

Massachusetts

• Boston University
• Harvard University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Northeastern University
• Tufts University

Michigan

• Michigan State University
• University of Michigan
• Wayne State University

Minnesota

• University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Mississippi

• University of Mississippi

Missouri

• Washington University in St. Louis

Nebraska

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln

New Jersey

• Princeton University
• Rutgers University

New Mexico

• New Mexico State University
• University of New Mexico

New York

• University at Buffalo
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• University of Rochester
• Rockefeller University
• Stony Brook University
• Syracuse University

North Carolina

• Duke University
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ohio

• Case Western Reserve University
• Ohio State University

Oklahoma

• University of Oklahoma

Oregon

• University of Oregon

Pennsylvania

• Carnegie Mellon University
• Pennsylvania State University
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Pittsburgh

Rhode Island

• Brown University

South Carolina

• University of South Carolina

Tennessee

• University of Tennessee
• Vanderbilt University

Texas

• University of Houston
• University of North Texas
• Rice University
• Southern Methodist University
• Texas A&M University
• Texas Tech University
• University of Texas at Arlington
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Texas at Dallas

Virginia

• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• University of Virginia
• College of William & Mary

Washington

• University of Washington

Wisconsin

• University of Wisconsin-Madison

Italy

• University of Pisa

Japan

• Waseda University

United Kingdom

• University College London
• University of Edinburgh
• University of Liverpool
• University of Manchester