Research Accelerator Fund to Support COVID-19 Research

Posted on April 30, 2020

Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz has announced the establishment of a UNC COVID-19 Research Accelerator Fund to provide critical unrestricted support to Carolina’s research teams focused on COVID-19 testing, treatment and prevention.

“Carolina’s $1.1 billion research enterprise has time and again discovered solutions to the world’s most critical problems, and this pandemic is no exception,” Guskiewicz said in an email to the UNC community.

“Our researchers and experts will solve the challenges at hand, and to do so, they need our support.”

Carolina is recognized as the 12th-largest research university in the U.S. and is fifth largest in federal research dollars. The Research Accelerator Fund has been set up to create a path for private donations to be directed to research, specifically efforts to fight COVID-19.

The University has been a leader in pandemic research for decades, from pioneering treatments for infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS to leading novel testing and development of antiviral therapies and vaccines for emerging threats like Ebola, Zika and coronavirus. Now, Carolina researchers are using their expertise in microbiology, immunology, epidemiology and pharmacology to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, Carolina was recognized as the highest ranked among U.S. universities in coronavirus research by Microsoft Academic; its rating system is based on how often other researchers cite articles written by the University’s faculty members. Also, Reuters recently named UNC the sixth-most innovative university in the world. The University is home to four U.S. News & World Report top-ranked health sciences schools, including the schools of pharmacy, public health, medicine and nursing.

 

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