The academic research enterprise—the people, infrastructure, policies, and systems that make discovery possible—is foundational to innovation, economic growth, and the public good. Ithaka S+R works with universities, funders, and research communities to strengthen this enterprise as it navigates global challenges, rapid technological change, shifting funding landscapes, and threats to research integrity.
Our work focuses on how research is conducted, supported, governed, and sustained. We combine expertise with empirical research and lead multi-institutions collaboration to help higher education leaders build resilient research ecosystems that can meet current and future challenges.
Artificial intelligence and research transformation
Generative AI and machine learning technologies are transforming how research is conducted and shared. Faculty are integrating AI tools into literature review, data analysis, and writing workflows. Institutions are experimenting with AI-enabled administrative practices and seeking solutions to urgent questions about governance, infrastructure, compliance, and risk.
We study how researchers are adopting generative AI across disciplines from biomedicine to the humanities and explore the negative and positive ways AI is changing the nature of scholarship. Our work also explores adoption of enterprise AI platforms, vendor partnerships, and community-based AI tools. By tracking the evolving AI product landscape and documenting institutional strategies, we provide leaders with practical guidance for mission-aligned, ethical, implementation.
Open science and research infrastructure
Modern scholarship increasingly depends on complex data ecosystems, research software, high-performance computing, and coordinated support services. At the same time, funder mandates and scholarly norms are accelerating the push toward open science, data sharing, and reproducibility.
We examine how universities are organizing and delivering research data services, how researchers experience and navigate campus support structures, and where gaps or redundancies hinder effective collaboration. Our work explores emerging organizational models for sustaining open-source research software, advancing open science, and strengthening institutional capacity.
By mapping data services across institutions and analyzing disciplinary differences in data sharing practices, we help leaders leverage campus resources to better support data-intensive and computational research from across higher education. Through rigorous research and stakeholder convenings we seek to ensure that infrastructure investments align with researchers’ needs, policy requirements, and contribute to a healthy, sustainable, research enterprise.
Research communities
The strength of the research enterprise ultimately depends on people: faculty investigators, research scientists, postdoctoral scholars, technical specialists, and administrative staff who sustain complex scholarly ecosystems. Changes in funding policy, regulatory requirements, and institutional priorities directly affect this human infrastructure.
We are documenting how funding fluctuations and policy shifts are affecting research employment, staffing patterns, and institutional capacity in the US, and helping universities support international research collaboration. Amidst a rapidly changing international and national policy environment, we provide evidence and perspectives to inform institutional strategy, to protect and strengthen the research enterprise.
Strengthening the research enterprise
Across these areas, Ithaka S+R provides actionable research and strategic insight to help institutions adapt to change while remaining grounded in their core mission: advancing knowledge for the public good. By addressing technology adoption, infrastructure coordination, and research communities together, we support a resilient research enterprise capable of meeting society’s most pressing challenges.