2023-24 Edition

Office of Research

Pramod  Khargonekar, Vice Chancellor for Research

The mission of the Office of Research (OR) is to support and enhance the creative and scholarly activities of UCI researchers.

OR provides central campus administrative support for UCI’s research programs. It includes Research Administration, University Laboratory Animal Resources (ULAR), Federal Relations, Administrative Operations and Planning, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor. Each of these units contributes to the overall objective of facilitating campus research activities. Additionally, the Office of Research oversees the operation of many research centers and institutes. Learn more about the Office of Research, it's mission, organizational structure and leadership here: http://research.uci.edu/about/

Below is a comprehensive list of centers and institutes that report (directly or indirectly) to the Vice Chancellor for Research.

Special Research Programs

Special Research Programs (SRPs) exist at UC Irvine to provide a structure for collaborative research activities that do not fit the definition and purpose of an Organized Research Unit, a Campus Center, or a School Center.

Beckman Laser Institute

The Beckman Laser Institute (BLI) was established in 1982 by Dr. Arnold O. Beckman and Dr. Michael W. Berns as an interdisciplinary center for the development and application of optical technologies in biology and medicine. Since the opening in 1986, Beckman Laser Institute has grown to include 18 faculty and their 130 affiliated students, postdoctoral fellows, technical staff, and administrative support. BLI is one of five national Beckman Institutes supported by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. BLI is dedicated to cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and the interface of physical science, engineering, and biology. Because BLI also houses a medical clinic, it is unique in its capacity for conducting translational research that moves basic technologies rapidly from “benchtop to bedside.” For more information visit the Beckman Laser Institute website.

California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2)

Calit2 is a two-campus multidisciplinary research institute established by the State of California in 2000. One of four University of California Institutes for Science and Innovation, Calit2 is a partnership between academia and the business community. The Institute’s unique research approach integrates academic intellectual capital across a wide range of disciplines with industry expertise. In collaboration with its sister division at UC San Diego, Calit2@UCI seeks innovative IT approaches that will benefit society and ignite economic development in the state and throughout the country.

More than 150 UCI faculty, 250 students, and 100 industry partners are actively engaged in Calit2 research areas that include the environment, transportation, emergency management, health care, education, and entertainment.

Calit2 also strives to prepare students for successful careers after graduation; the Institute’s programs include SURF-IT, a summer undergraduate opportunity that immerses students in hands-on research, as well as a graduate fellows program that helps fund a select group of students doing multidisciplinary, IT-focused graduate work. For more information visit the Calit2 website.

Facility for Imaging and Brain Research (FIBRE)

The Facility for Imaging and Brain Research (FIBRE), located on the ground floor of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, houses a 3T Siemens Prisma scanner, a mock scanner, and data analysis facilities. This research-dedicated MRI scanning facility, operated by Dr. Craig Stark, is designed to suit a wide range of basic and translational research programs by researchers across the UCI campus and beyond. For more information visit the FIBRE website.

Institute for Clinical and Translational Science

The Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) in the Office of Research is a uniquely transformative, novel, and integrative academic home for clinical and translational science with the resources to train and advance a cadre of well-trained multi- and interdisciplinary investigators and research teams. The Institute facilitates access to innovative research tools and information technologies to promote the application of new knowledge and techniques to patient care. ICTS assists basic, translational, and clinical investigators, community clinicians, clinical practices, networks, professional societies, and industry to develop new professional interactions, programs, and research projects. ICTS fosters a new discipline of clinical and translational science that is much broader and deeper than their separate components. The faculty members associated with ICTS are instrumental in supporting students in related advanced degree programs via their grants and other sources of financial support. ICTS consists of several units: Pilot and Collaborative Translational and Clinical Studies; Translational Technologies and Resources; Development of Novel Clinical and Translational Methodologies; Biomedical Informatics (including the Center for Medical Informatics); Design, Biostatistics, and Clinical Research Ethics; Regulatory Knowledge and Support; Participant and Clinical Interactions Resources; Community Engagement; and Research Education, Training, and Career Development. More information is available at the ICTS website.

New Swan Shakespeare Center

Shakespeare has been a part of UCI ever since Clayton Garrison directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the campus’s first class of drama students in 1965. Forty-seven years later, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts launched the New Swan Shakespeare Festival, which performs two plays in repertory each summer in an intimate outdoor theater modeled on an Elizabethan stage. UCI has been home to many distinguished Shakespeare scholars, including Robert Montgomery, James Calderwood, and Robert Weimann, and for 10 years has sponsored the dynamic Group for the Study of Early Cultures. The UCI New Swan Shakespeare Center will build on existing partnerships between Arts and Humanities by developing broad-based, research-driven programming that cultivates the forms of embodied speech, imaginative response and historical reckoning that constitute drama as an art form. Under the leadership of Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and a Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America, and Eli Simon, Chancellor’s Professor of Drama and Artistic Director of the New Swan Shakespeare Festival, the Center aims to make UCI the premier institution in California for the integrated production, study and enjoyment of Shakespeare. Visit the New Swan website to learn more.

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae®

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG)® is a research project that was established at UCI in 1972, thanks to a gift by UCI alumna Marianne McDonald. Its goals are to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era; to conduct literary research using collected texts; and to apply technological innovation in these endeavors. The TLG® corpus currently contains more than 105 million words of Greek text from Homer (8 c. B.C) to the fall of Byzantium in A.D. 1453 and beyond.

TLG® research activities combine the traditional concerns and methodologies of philological and literary study with the most advanced features of computer technology. Included among current research foci are the identification of ancient Greek literary and documentary materials from various literary-historical periods; the conversion of these materials into digital form using modern methods of text encoding; the enhancement of automated text-correction routines; and the formulation of criteria for the lexical analysis and categorization of the texts in the corpus. The full corpus is available to more than 2,000 subscribing institutions and thousands of individuals in 58 countries worldwide.

TLG®’s library holdings enhance those of the UCI Langson Library, and TLG® conferences and scholarly visits afford faculty and students contact with eminent scholars in related fields. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae® has made UCI a major source of Classics research activity. For more information visit the TLG website.

UCI Nature

UCI Nature offers UC Irvine’s faculty and students opportunities to bring their research, scholarship, teaching, public service, and developing careers out into the natural environment in a wide diversity of settings characteristic of California. UC Irvine directly oversees four protected natural areas, two of which include lodging facilities and are about a three hour drive from Irvine, and two of which are within walking distance of campus. UCI Nature also maintains partnership agreements that facilitate access to additional natural areas and facilities not directly managed by the University. Together, these field-based assets span regional gradients across environments from the ocean to the desert, as well as a diversity of societal contexts, all within a few hours of campus. This system of assets available to UC Irvine’s faculty and students is connected on yet a larger scale to the system-wide UC Natural Reserve System. UCI Nature functions as a single umbrella structure for the management, operations, and leveraging of these natural assets, and includes faculty governance that allows for communication and optimal allocation of resources across the different programs. The place-based focus fosters excellence in research and scholarship, tangible interdisciplinary interactions, and community-based partnerships that engage our faculty and students in meaningful real-world problems. For further information contact UCI Nature Executive Director Megan Lulow at mlulow@uci.edu, Faculty Director Kailen Mooney mooneyk@uci.edu

UC Natural Reserve System

The University of California maintains a network of 41 Reserves (800,000 ac) that are representative of the State’s habitat and geographic diversity. These serve as outdoor classrooms and laboratories for students, faculty, and staff, and are intended primarily for purposes of education and research. UCI oversees three of these Reserves: the Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve, the San Joaquin Marsh Reserve, and the Steele Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center. For further information visit the Natural Reserve System website at https://ucnrs.org or contact UCI Nature Executive Director Megan Lulow at mlulow@uci.edu, Faculty Director Kailen Mooney mooneyk@uci.edu.

Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve

The Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve is located near the town of Yucca Valley in San Bernardino County. It is a 306-acre parcel of high-desert habitat representing an ecotone between montane and desert biota, with mixtures of Joshua tree, piñon pine, and juniper woodland. The Reserve has a field station with dormitories and communal living and kitchen space, as well as primitive camping facilities, and is used primarily for overnight field trips and research. For further information, visit http://burns.ucnrs.org or contact UCI Nature Executive Director Megan Lulow at mlulow@uci.edu.

San Joaquin Marsh Reserve

The San Joaquin Marsh Reserve, one of the last remaining coastal marshes in Southern California, is a 202-acre wetland adjacent to the UCI campus. The Marsh consists of a series of freshwater ponds and their attendant aquatic flora and fauna, and is especially known for its rich bird life, both resident and migratory. The Reserve also sustains one of the largest Pacific pond turtle populations in Southern California. The Marsh has about 150 acres of cattail wetlands in three large cells, and 11 experimental bulrush-dominated ponds whose water levels can be manipulated for teaching and research purposes. For further information, visit http://sanjoaquin.ucnrs.org or contact UCI Nature Executive Director Megan Lulow at mlulow@uci.edu.

Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center

The Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center, adjacent to the town of Borrego Springs, includes approximately 80 acres, with a large historic clubhouse that serves as home base for researchers and students. Through a cooperative agreement with California State Parks and the Anza-Borrego Foundation, the Research Center offers access to California’s largest state park. The 615,000-acre Anza-Borrego Desert State Park encompasses native fan palm oases and piñon pine-juniper forests, and is home to the endangered desert bighorn sheep. The Research Center encourages the study of environmental and ecological problems in the region. For further information, visit http://anzaborrego.ucnrs.org/, or contact the Research Center on-site Manager Jim Dice at dicej@uci.edu or UCI Nature Executive Director Megan Lulow at mlulow@uci.edu.

UC Systemwide Natural Reserve System California Ecology and Conservation Course

The Natural Reserve System course, available to all undergraduate students in the UC system, allows students to experience a diversity of ecological experiences through the use of UC Natural Reserve System sites. It provides a tool for students to see first-hand how climate change and other environmental variations in California directly influence plant and animal ecology throughout the state. For further information, visit the Natural Reserve System website https://ucnrs.org.

UCI Ecological Preserve

The 62-acre UCI Ecological Preserve consists of several small hills and surrounding flatlands bearing remnants of coastal sage scrub flora and associated fauna, including the California gnatcatcher (Federally listed as Threatened) and the coastal cactus wren. The Preserve is located on the campus and is set aside for teaching, research, and passive recreational use by the campus community. The property is protected under the Natural Communities Conservation Plan and is part of the Nature Reserve of Orange County (https://occonservation.org/). For more information contact UCI Nature Executive Director Megan Lulow at mlulow@uci.edu.

UCI Herbarium (IRVC)

The UCI Herbarium (IRVC) curates ca. 35,000 vascular plant specimens, especially from southern California and Baja California, Mexico, and is a part of the Arboretum.  IRVC is a member of the Consortium of California Herbaria and is a participant in the Consortium’s Digital Herbarium project. For further information call 949-824-5833 or contact Rebecca Crowe, Nursery Manager at rcrowe@uci.edu.

Crystal Cove State Park Research Cottage

UCI-Nature maintains a partnership with California State Parks and the Crystal Cove Alliance for use of their Research Cottage to promote scholarly work pertinent to the understanding and management of ecosystems at the Park. It has beach shore and coastal hill access within the Park, meeting and lecture space, and small wet and dry labs. For more information, contact UCI Nature Executive Director Megan Lulow at mlulow@uci.edu.

University of California Humanities Research Institute

The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) is a multicampus research program of the University of California, serving all 10 campuses in the UC system. Founded in 1987 and headquartered at the UC Irvine campus, the Institute promotes collaborative work representing different fields and institutions both within and beyond the University of California. UCHRI addresses topics in traditional humanities disciplines, as well as in new areas intersecting with social and natural sciences, technology, art, medicine, and the professions. Stressing interdisciplinary collaborative research, UCHRI bridges gaps between disciplines across the humanities and human sciences and seeks to overcome the intellectual and institutional barriers that can separate the humanities from other fields.

The Institute is also an integral part of the newly funded system-wide UC Humanities Networking Initiative. In this role, UCHRI provides support for the Society of Fellows in the Humanities and the Consortium of Humanities Centers. UCHRI is a founding member of HASTAC, the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, a consortium of humanists, artists, social scientists, scientists, and engineers committed to new forms of collaboration across communities and disciplines fostered by creative uses of technology.

UCHRI also administers the UC Consortium in California Studies; the Andrew Vincent White and Florence Wales White Graduate Student Scholarship supporting dissertation research in the humanities or theoretical social sciences and medicine; the UC-University Utrecht faculty collaborative research grants; and the annual summer Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory.

UCHRI, in partnership with Duke University, administers the Digital Media and Learning Competition, a $2-million annual program funded by the MacArthur Foundation to award emerging leaders who use digital technologies to envision the future of learning.

For additional information, contact the University of California Humanities Research Institute, 4000 Humanities Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697-3350; 949-824-8180; uchri@uci.edu; or visit the UCHRI website.

Organized Research Units

Organized Research Units (ORUs) normally consist of an interdisciplinary group of faculty, students, and other researchers engaged in a continuing program of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research, supported by both University and extramural funding. The work of some ORUs is directed toward the solution of complex contemporary problems, while others conduct basic research essential to the understanding of natural or social phenomena or of humanistic ideas and expressions. The following ORUs have been established on the Irvine campus.

* denotes provisional ORU status (PrORU)

AirUCI

AirUCI is a research team based at UCI focused on probing a new type of chemistry that occurs in the atmosphere at the interface between air and water. Funded by the National Science Foundation (Divisions of Chemistry and Atmospheric Sciences), AirUCI began in August 2002 as a Collaborative Research in Chemistry (CRC) group and was accepted as an ORU in July 2008.

Chemical reactions that play key roles in the formation of smog, acid rain, and in global climate change are known to occur between gases, as well as inside liquid droplets that are present in the atmosphere in the form of airborne particles, fogs, and clouds. Only recently has it been apparent that chemical reactions also occur right at the interface between air and these atmospheric droplets. Both the speed with which these interface reactions occur and the manner in which they take place may be quite different from reactions in either the gas or liquid. AirUCI’s scientific team combines theory, experiments, and computer modeling of air quality to provide new insights into how this chemistry at interfaces impacts the atmosphere. More information is available at the AirUCI website.

Cancer Research Institute

The UCI Cancer Research Institute (CRI) is an Organized Research Unit dedicated to basic cancer research. The CRI has 55 faculty affiliates from departments in the Schools of Biological Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, and Physical Sciences. The CRI supports faculty research, organizes cancer-related training, and functions as the basic sciences arm of the UCI Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. The CRI offices are located in Sprague Hall on the UCI main campus; Sprague Hall is a facility dedicated to research in cancer and genetics. Additional information is available at the CRI website.

Center for Complex Biological Systems

The UCI Center for Complex Biological Systems (CCBS) promotes research and education in the area of systems biology broadly defined, which includes aspects of synthetic biology, genomics and functional genomics, computational biology, mathematical biology, biophysics, bioengineering, and molecular biology. The goal is to develop a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of complex biological systems and their behaviors. The basic approach is to facilitate the formation of multidisciplinary research teams to address the most critical questions. Additional information is available on the CCBS website.

Center for Embedded and Cyber-physical Systems Systems

The purpose of the Center for Embedded and Cyber-physical Systems - also known as CECS - is to conduct leading-edge interdisciplinary research in embedded systems, emphasizing automotive, communications and medical applications, and promote technology and knowledge transfer for the benefit of the individual and society. Additional information is available on the CECS website.

Center for Population, Inequality and Policy*

Growing inequality is among the most pressing challenges in many parts of the world including the United States. The Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy (CPIP)—a provisional ORU—at UCI brings together faculty from many disciplines to work together to develop deeper understanding of various aspects of this topic in an increasingly diverse population, and to study public policy interventions that would move society towards shared prosperity and well-being. For more information visit the CPIP website.

Center for Translational Vision Research

The Center for Translational Vision Research (CTVR)—a provisional ORU—focuses on fostering vision research at the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute (GHEI). The purpose of the Center is to increase the knowledge of normal vision and blinding disorders, and to create innovative technologies, solutions and educational programs that improve visual health. To achieve the Center’s mission, scientists, engineers, and physicians devote their time and talents to discoveries in the basic and translational sciences, forming the bedrock of inventive therapies for the prevention or treatment of visual diseases. Visit the CTVR website to learn more.

Center for Virus Research

The Center for Virus Research (CVR) seeks to foster interdisciplinary scholarship, training, and research among virologists and other faculty. Research on viruses provides a biological and technological foundation from which much has been discovered concerning the basic molecular processes of organisms. Viruses supply some of the most useful experimental models for disease, cancer, immunity, and genetic systems of gene control. In addition, viral-based technology is being vigorously pursued and developed in the context of gene therapy and is teaching us much about the control of cellular processes. With the growing worldwide threat of emerging viral diseases, interest in virus research at all levels has intensified and has taken on a new global perspective. Previously separate disciplines such as molecular biology, pathogenesis, evolutionary biology, neurology, and radiological sciences can now be readily linked by virus research.

The CVR is also committed to advanced post-graduate training. In addition to shared facilities and the seminar and symposia series, the CVR oversees two training grants. Since graduate training in virology encompasses six departments in three schools, the CVR has also become the focus and administrative point for the organization of graduate virology courses and the virology track of the interdisciplinary graduate program in Cellular and Molecular Biosciences (CMB). For more information visit the Center for Virus Research website.

Connected Learning Lab*

The UCI Connected Learning Lab (CLL), a provisional ORU, studies, designs, and develops new learning technologies and collaborations to foster equity, innovation, and learner-centered education. Learn more at the CLL website.

Health Policy Research Institute

The Health Policy Research Institute (HPRI) is an interdisciplinary faculty research organization dedicated to improving the quality of care and reducing the disparities in health care. Through research, its faculty and associates translate scientific findings into practice by uniting clinical sciences with the social and behavioral science fields of economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and business. This unique platform provides the basis for HPRI’s research results to directly effect health policy and the health of the local community and the public.

HPRI is committed to building the center into a nationally recognized focal point for health care research. HPRI has four principal functions: (1)  to produce high-level health policy research in the areas of quality of chronic disease care (i.e., diabetes, cancer, nursing home care) and reduce health disparities and improve quality of care for ethnic minorities; (2) to disseminate research findings to UCI’s faculty and students through seminar series, meetings, and publications; (3)  to serve as the research center for UCI graduate and undergraduate students who have health interests; and (4) to support improvements in patient health and safety and organizational improvements in the UCI health care system.

HPRI’s achievement of these goals begins with its faculty—an interdisciplinary group of national leaders representing health services research, health economics, clinical epidemiology, psychometrics, and behavioral sciences in medicine. The current research led by HPRI’s members and its campuswide collaborators enhance UCI as one of the best research universities in the country. For more information visit the HPRI website.

Institute for Future Health*

The Institute for Future Health aims to integrate lifestyle, community, environment, and social factors in conjunction with clinical knowledge to radically transform health systems away from hospitals and into the hands of each individual. Use power of data created by the nexus of knowledge of genetics and biology, sensors, mobile technology, knowledge-based AI systems, data management, and medical technology to empower people to be healthy. Use power of mobile phones to create personal health navigators that will power healthcare for everybody - the poorest people living in the remotest areas in the world. We convert Healthcare to become a popular Personal Health Navigation approach. For more information visit the Institute for Future Health website.

Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics

The Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics (IGB) provides an organizational structure for interdisciplinary research and training in genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, and computational biology—emerging scientific disciplines that are revolutionizing biology, medicine, and society. IGB computational and life scientists are working together to pioneer fundamental processes for reverse engineering gene and protein networks to understand complex biological systems. Through these interdisciplinary collaborations, IGB scientists are creating new theoretical, algorithmic, and software advances in storing, retrieving, networking, processing, modeling, analyzing, navigating, and visualizing biological information. In turn, their computational and computer science accomplishments are providing methods, predictions, and new hypotheses that are driving biological research in previously unanticipated ways. This scientific cross-fertilization is enriching both fields and will continue to do so in the coming decades. More complete descriptions of the Institute’s research and training programs are available at the IGB website.

Institute for Immunology

The UCI Institute for Immunology currently comprises of more than two-dozen faculty members from the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Medicine, whose research and instructional efforts are in immunology. It integrates the immunological research and educational activities of multiple departments, including Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Physiology and Biophysics, Pathology, Medicine, Neurology and Chemistry. The activities of the Institute extend to synergize with allied areas of research including biomedical engineering, public health, and physical rehabilitation. The major mandate of the Institute for Immunology is to consolidate and further the research and training/instructional efforts in immunology at UCI, thereby promoting the rapid development of world-class research and outstanding graduate and medical training programs in immunology. For more information visit the UCI Institute for Immunology website.

Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences

The Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences fosters research in the application of mathematical models and methods to describe and to better understand human behavior, both individual and social. Mimicking the successful interaction between mathematics and the physical sciences, a goal of the Institute is to generate successful interactions between mathematics and the behavioral and social sciences. The Institute sponsors specialized seminars and colloquia, a visiting scholars program, workshops, and focused research groups of faculty, students, and visitors, and it maintains a Technical Report Series. Participants include faculty from the Departments of Anthropology, Cognitive Sciences, Economics, Logic and Philosophy of Science, Political Science, and Sociology in the School of Social Sciences; the Department of Mathematics in the School of Physical Sciences; the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering; the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences; and The Paul Merage School of Business. Additional information is available at the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences website.

Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND)

The Institute is an Organized Research Unit dedicated to investigating the causes of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and to improving the quality of life and promoting successful aging. The vision for The Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders is to develop approaches for lessening the impact of memory-related disorders. Tackling these complex issues requires a multidisciplinary approach, which is reflected in the diversity of the Institute’s faculty, who have primary appointments in the Schools of Biological Sciences, Information and Computer Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Sciences.

The Institute is one of 31 Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers (ADRCs) supported by the National Institute for Aging, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, and is also one of 10 California Alzheimer’s Disease centers (ADC) funded by the California Department of Public Health. For more information visit the UCI MIND website.

Institute of Transportation Studies

The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), a University of California Organized Research Unit with branches at Irvine, Davis, and Berkeley, was established to foster research, education, and training in the field of transportation.

ITS research at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) involves faculty and students from The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, the School of Social Sciences, the School of Social Ecology, The Paul Merage School of Business, and the Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. The Institute also hosts visiting scholars from the U.S. and abroad to facilitate cooperative research and information exchange, and sponsors conferences and colloquia to disseminate research results. ITS has a long and rich history of providing both direct and indirect support to the UCI transportation graduate programs. It provides office and research space to virtually all of the students enrolled in UCI’s four graduate transportation programs—the interdisciplinary Program in Transportation Science; the graduate concentration in Transportation Economics; the Transportation Planning option in the Department of Planning, Policy, and Design; and the Transportation Systems Engineering graduate focus in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. ITS provides extensive computing resources to all of these students, together with state-of-the-art simulation and laboratory facilities. ITS subscribes to the major transportation research journals and offers a variety of computer-based information retrieval services. More information can be found at the ITS website.

Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy

The Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) fosters academic research and education to provide a better understanding of the democratic process, and the steps that may strengthen democracy at home and abroad. The faculty and students of the Center study both democratizing nations and the expansion of the democratic process in the United States and other Western democracies. The Center hosts research conferences, sponsors faculty research, publishes a research paper series, and facilitates research and teaching on democratic themes.

In 1995, the National Science Foundation selected UCI to establish a Graduate Research Traineeship on Democratization and Democratic Politics. University, foundation, and philanthropic support has continued this graduate education through the Democracy Fellows program. The formal course work and faculty mentorship of the training program draw upon faculty of the Center and build upon its present research and educational activities. In addition, graduate fellows in the training program participate in the research activities of the Center. For more information visit the CSD website.

Reeve-Irvine Research Center

The Reeve-Irvine Research Center is a world renowned basic science research center devoted to the study of repair, regeneration, and recovery of function after spinal cord injury. Based at the University of California, Irvine, RIRC labs are equipped and staffed to allow cutting edge research at multiple levels ranging from stem cells to robotic retraining to promote functional recovery. RIRC scientists were amongst the first to test the potential of stem cells for spinal cord injury therapy, and research by RIRC scientists formed the basis for the first two clinical trials testing stem cell therapies in people with spinal cord injuries.

The mission of the RIRC is to find new treatments for spinal cord injury through the collaborative research and educational efforts of prominent scientists and clinicians both at the University of California, Irvine and around the world.More information is available at the RIRC website.

Campus Centers

A Campus Center provides a group of researchers with use of the “Center” title and a structure for its collaborative activities. The rationale for establishing a Campus Center may include attracting greater recognition and extramural support for a research program at UCI and/or providing an infrastructure that promotes synergistic interactions between a group of researchers within a school or across schools. Directors of campus centers typically report to the Dean of their respective schools. More information about the following centers may be found at the Campus Centers website.

Center for Asian Studies
Center for Critical Korean Studies
Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies (CGPACS)
Center for Hearing Research (CHR)
Center for Organizational Research (COR)
Center for the Study of Cannabis
Center in Law, Society and Culture (CLSC)
Epilepsy Research Center
Newkirk Center for Science and Society
Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture
UCI Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality
UCI Long China-US Institute
UCI Water-Energy Nexus Center

Other Research Centers and Institutes at UCI

“Other” research units do not fit the definition of an Organized Research Unit (ORU), Special Research Program (SRP), or Campus Center, but are similarly interdisciplinary. These units may have been designated as Centers by a sponsoring agency such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Institutes of Health (NIH), or they may be part of an intercampus-consortium, such as Centers funded by the UC Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI) competition. More information about the following centers may be found at the Centers & Institutes website.

Center for Complex and Active Materials (CCAM)
Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit (CaSTL)
Conte Center for Brain Programming in Adolescent Vulnerabilities
Gavin Herbert Eye Center
National Fuel Cell Research Center
NSF-Simons Center for Multiscale Cell Fate Research
Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center