Harvard announces $1.05 million Hbcu grant to 15 schools
Harvard announced a three-year, $1.05 million hbcu grant to the Association of Historically Black Colleges and Universities Research Institutions, a new coalition of 15 HBCUs. The money will support research infrastructure and technical assistance as the schools try to expand research capacity and pursue R1 status.
AHRI and Harvard
Sara Naomi Bleich, Harvard’s vice provost for special projects, said the grant shows the university is deepening its commitment to lasting partnerships with HBCUs. She said Harvard is using the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative to make the award, and that its Office for Research will provide technical support.
The grant also puts Harvard’s Office for Sponsored Programs into the effort, with technical assistance and guidance aimed at research administration and compliance infrastructure across AHRI member institutions. That kind of support sits beside the money itself; it is meant to help schools organize the systems that research universities rely on when they compete for larger awards.
Tomikia P. LeGrande
Tomikia P. LeGrande, president of Prairie View A&M University and vice chair of AHRI, said the 15 universities in the coalition collectively account for 50 percent of all competitively awarded federal research funding among HBCUs. She said AHRI is aligning that strength to amplify impact, accelerate discovery, and define the future of research.
LeGrande also called the launch of AHRI an important inflection point for HBCU research institutions. The coalition includes schools spanning R2 and R1 designations, and Howard University is the only partner institution in AHRI already holding R1 status.
Harvard and Legacy of Slavery
The grant directly implements Recommendation Three from Harvard’s 2022 Report of the Presidential Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery, which called for lasting connections with HBCUs. Ruth Simmons, Harvard’s senior adviser to the president on HBCU engagement, said AHRI brings institutions that have too often worked in isolation into sustained collaboration with one another and with leading research universities.
For the 15 schools, the immediate gain is not just funding but access to research support tied to classification goals. The practical test is whether those systems help more of them move toward R1 status while building on a coalition that already carries a large share of federal research funding among HBCUs.
