Rice’s Growing Research Ecosystem

Spring 2024

Welcome to the new Rice University, where research and innovation are the foundation for unprecedented discovery. Our breakthroughs will be achieved by a portfolio of new and existing interdisciplinary institutes, thoughtfully focused centers, and agile accelerators that will enable the translation of our innovations into the marketplace. 

The launch of our new institutes is part of a comprehensive ramp-up in Rice’s strategic research aspirations in health care sciences and technologies, data science and machine learning, and energy, environment and sustainability. Complementing the institutes, we recently announced Rice’s investment in five research centers that are more focused in scope. 

The Rice Center for Nanoscale Imaging Sciences will work in tandem with the Texas Medical Center and the Rice Advanced Materials Institute to drive new discoveries in imaging sciences, impacting biology, biomedicine, energy, sustainability and national security. The Synthesis X Center also builds on collaborations with the Texas Medical Center and has important applications for cancer prevention, detection and treatment.

The Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience and the Center for Environmental Studies will focus on the Gulf Coast’s intersecting social and environmental challenges, working synergistically with the new Rice Sustainability Institute. Importantly, the centers will partner with leading community development organizations, allowing Rice researchers to more effectively engage with Houston’s vulnerable and underserved communities. 

The new Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies builds upon the work of the Initiative for the Study of LatinX America at Rice and aims to further collaborations with academic institutions in Latin America and the United States, especially in the Gulf Coast region and the U.S. South. The center aims to address and research major challenges affecting Latin American and Latinx communities.

Additionally, our two new accelerators, with five-year missions to reach the market, will provide us with the pathways to develop technology at speed and scale: The Biotech Launchpad is taking Rice biotechnology from concept to clinic, and the Woodside-Rice Decarbonization Accelerator will convert greenhouse gases into value-added products.

The dynamic goals of our institutes, centers and accelerators reflect the exciting future we envision and are building together as a university. It is a growing part of Rice’s ethos to improve the lives of those outside the university’s hedges — whether they are just down the street or across the world. 

 — Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for research, and Paul Cherukuri, vice president for innovation