But the university’s leaders have even loftier goals: They want to double the amount of grants, private contracts, and donations awarded for faculty research — to $100 million — in just five years. They also hope to join the exclusive group of universities classified by Carnegie as R-1, or Research 1, which would put them in the company of institutions like Georgetown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The criteria for reaching that classification include several measures of research spending, staff levels, and the number of doctorates an institution awards.

“Research is at the center of things that are critical to the success of a university,” says Fred P. Pestello, president of Saint Louis.

Raising the university’s research profile would improve its prestige and reputation, says Kenneth A. Olliff, vice president for research at Saint Louis. And along with those intangible rewards, he says, comes the potential to attract better faculty members and students, and more money from philanthropy.

Just as important, more research dollars from outside sources would bolster the university’s bottom line. While Saint Louis doesn’t expect to cover all its research costs from outside sources, it could spend much less of its own money to pay for the salaries and facilities required for that research, says Olliff, who came to the institution after holding a similar role at the University of Chicago.

To reach its goals, Saint Louis is using a range of proven policies, like focusing its research efforts on niche or emerging areas where the competition for dollars is not as fierce; awarding institutional grants to seed new research ventures; and training faculty members to write stronger grant proposals.

But the path to the pinnacle of academic research is narrow and crowded. In 2015, the last year Carnegie updated its classifications, just 115 institutions held R-1 status, seven more than in 2010. About 150 universities spend more than $100-million a year on research. Among those striving to raise their research profiles are the Universities of Memphis, Montana, and Nevada at Reno. All three share St. Louis’s R-2 classification.

To reach the top often requires significant costs to build laboratory space, recruit star faculty researchers, and pay graduate-student stipends. And the competition for both faculty members and coveted federal research grants is growing, while federal spending for those awards is stagnant. Meanwhile, critics wonder whether going for more research money and a higher Carnegie classification really has more to do with elevating institutional image, and comes at the expense of academic quality — particularly for undergraduates.

“It’s a huge investment on the part of the institution,” says George D. Kuh, founding director of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. Based at Indiana University at Bloomington, the institute studies ways to improve undergraduate education. “There are so many other universities around that have already captured the prestige.”

Douglas K. Rush, president of the Faculty Senate at Saint Louis, raises an even deeper question: whether the focus on expanded research and rankings fits the university’s Jesuit mission. Instead of just looking at the bottom line, he says, the university needs to pursue research dedicated to social justice and improving the lives of the city’s residents.

Changing the Culture

In some ways, Saint Louis University is already well positioned with both facilities and academic programs to raise its research profile. Its medical school has affiliations with several hospitals in the region. Its Edward A. Doisy Research Center for biomedical research is home to a half-dozen academic centers, specializing in cancer, liver disease, vaccine development, and other subjects. The Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology houses 10 research centers in a wide range of areas, such as air-traffic control, concrete and materials, and biomedical engineering.

Even with those assets, research expenditures at Saint Louis have fallen significantly over the past decade. In 2008 the university devoted more than $59 million to research — including the money from federal grants — according to federal data on research expenditures. By 2016 that sum had fallen to $42 million, a decline of more than 28 percent.

Enrico Di Cera, chair of the biochemistry and molecular-biology department, supports the university’s research ambitions. But he attributes the decline in research dollars to a culture that put short-term revenues from clinical care ahead of long-term rewards from basic research. “The problem is not that the university doesn’t have the potential,” he says. “It doesn’t have the culture.”

Despite the downward trends, Olliff, the vice president for research, says Saint Louis can raise the amount of research without building new labs — at least for the short term. “The infrastructure could support an enterprise that’s twice the size we are now,” he says. “So we have the capacity to grow research without extensive added costs.”

Saint Louis is pursuing a number of other relatively low-cost measures to attract more research dollars, including providing more training to help faculty members improve their grant applications. It has also begun giving researchers more of the federal money intended to pay for the facilities and administration of their grants. To make those grants more successful, the university has hired Lewis-Burke Associates, a Washington-based consulting and lobbying firm, to help faculty members understand the priorities of the major federal agencies that award research money.

And to help guide its future research agenda, Saint Louis is awarding its own planning grants for “big ideas” that demonstrate “broad faculty engagement, strong leadership, and compelling research plans.” For this year, three projects have been awarded $50,000 grants. They will help create a center for systems biology, a water institute, and new programs in geospatial research and training. The last of those is intended to capitalize on science and technology opportunities in the region, including a $1.7-billion campus under construction in St. Louis by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Saint Louis is following many proven strategies to raise its profile, like providing seed money for promising research projects and more support for successful grant-writing, says Daniel A. Reed, senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. The university is also playing it smart by looking for niche opportunities rather than trying to displace an established program at a competing university, says Reed, previously vice president for research and economic development at the University of Iowa.

“The trick is choosing that niche wisely,” he says.

Competition Is ‘Pretty Brutal’

Finding the right niche is just part of the challenge. There is a long line of institutions, many with greater resources, chasing a limited number of federal and private research dollars.

“In general the money has not increased, the competition for funding is pretty brutal, and more people are chasing money than there are grants available,” Reed says.

Saint Louis plans to spend about a half-million dollars to support a handful of new research proposals. But, for example, Auburn University, which is in the same Carnegie classification, R-2, is spending 10 times that amount on what it calls 11 “groundbreaking projects designed to deliver practical, life-changing solutions.”

Another example is Rowan University, a regional comprehensive institution in New Jersey that is now in the lowest tier of doctoral institutions: It has committed to spending $50 million in seed money to support more medical research.

The number of universities assigned Carnegie’s highest research classification is relatively small, and fluctuates because there are no bright lines that automatically divide research institutions into the three existing categories, says Victor M.H. Borden, a professor of higher education at Indiana who now oversees the classification system.

“Because seven different measures are employed, it is not possible to say specifically ‘what it takes’ ” to move up in the rankings, says Borden.

When the ratings were last updated, in 2015, 15 universities were moved up to the R-1 category, while eight were moved down, according to figures from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana, where the classification system is now located.

Aside from competition with other institutions, internal budget and management issues can hold back a university’s research capacity and reputation. At Saint Louis, the medical school was put on probation last year by the accrediting body for M.D. programs. In January the group that accredits medical residencies and fellowships began an investigation into “concerns about the learning environment related to fear/retaliation” at the school. Kevin Behrns, the medical school’s dean, called those findings “unacceptable” and said the university would swiftly address them.

In addition, Saint Louis has suffered enrollment declines in recent years, and had a budget deficit of $16 million in 2017. As a result, President Pestello made the decision to close its Center for World Health and Medicine and cut more than 20 positions, mostly at that center’s lab.

Di Cera, the chair of biochemistry, says that instead of cutting costs, the university will have to make a big investment. Increasing the amount of administrative money that goes to researchers is a good first step for improving faculty morale, he says, “but it won’t bring the university out of the slump it’s been in for the past 15 years.”

“There is an organic problem at this institution,” he says, “and none of this will change unless there is a massive investment and aggressive recruitment of new faculty.”

Will Students Lose Out?

Beyond the question of whether Saint Louis, or any other institution, can achieve its research goals is the broader question about whether doing so amounts to the right priority. The region already has a major research institution, Washington University in St. Louis, notes Karen Gross, a higher-education consultant and former president of Southern Vermont College. “Why is one more needed? To improve enrollment? For status? Many students stay relatively close to home, so why saturate one market and leave others vapid?” she said in an email.

A more pressing need for the city, as well as much of the rest of the country, is to improve undergraduate education, especially for minority and low-income students, Gross wrote.

Increasing the amount of research money will very likely make graduate programs more competitive, says Kuh, of Indiana University. And while undergraduate research can be a valuable part of the learning experience, there is no direct relationship between the quality of undergraduate learning and the amount a university spends on research, he says.

“Attracting more research-focused faculty does not mean they will be spending more time with undergrads,” Kuh says. “Teaching undergraduates is not a strong sell for researchers.”

Rush, the Faculty Senate president at Saint Louis and an associate professor of higher-education administration, says there’s nothing wrong with setting a goal to double research spending, as long as the kind of research remains focused on serving the institution’s Jesuit, social-justice mission. He has been a vocal opponent of any effort that seeks only to improve research metrics or move up the rankings ladder.

“I would rather go out and market the university as the No. 1 urban, social-justice institution in the country,” he says.

Olliff, the vice president for research, says he understands the institution’s Christian mission — he also happens to be an ordained minister. Saint Louis’s research goals, he says, seek to improve the university’s climate, and not just its bottom line.

“I wouldn’t make too much of the double research funding,” he says. “We want to become a great research university that allows faculty to do what they want to do. Our job is to attract talented, ambitious people and give them the opportunity to invest in their research.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at [email protected].

Correction (7/30/2018; 10:22 a.m.): Daniel A. Reed is senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah, not Utah State University, as this article originally stated.