19th century The concept of the research university first arose in early 19th-century
Prussia in Germany, where
Wilhelm von Humboldt championed his vision of (the unity of teaching and research), as a means of producing an education that focused on the main areas of knowledge, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and
humanities, rather than on the previous goals of the university education, which was to develop an understanding of truth, beauty, and
goodness.
Roger L. Geiger, "the leading historian of the American research university," has argued that "the model for the American research university was established by five of the nine
colonial colleges chartered before the
American Revolution (
Harvard,
Yale,
Pennsylvania,
Princeton, and
Columbia); five state universities (
Michigan,
Wisconsin,
Minnesota,
Illinois, and
California); and five private institutions conceived from their inception as research universities (
MIT,
Cornell,
Johns Hopkins,
Stanford, and
Chicago)." The American research university first emerged in the late 19th century, when these fifteen institutions began to graft graduate programs derived from the German model onto undergraduate programs derived from the British model.
20th century Research universities were essential to the establishment of American
hegemony by the end of the 20th century. Most importantly, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, and Princeton (along with Birmingham and Cambridge in the UK) directly participated in the creation of the first
nuclear weapons (the
Manhattan Project). Besides that, Columbia and Harvard were instrumental in the early development of the
American film industry (Hollywood), MIT and Stanford were leaders in building the American
military–industrial complex and developing
artificial intelligence, and Berkeley and Stanford played a central role in the development of
Silicon Valley. The "most prestigious group of research universities" in the United States is the
Association of American Universities. Since the 1960s, American research universities, especially the leading American public research
university system, the
University of California, have served as models for research universities around the world. Having one or more universities based on the American model (including the use of
English as a lingua franca) is a badge of "social progress and
modernity" for the contemporary
nation-state.
21st century The Americans' continued dominance into the early 21st century has forced their European counterparts to confront the urgent need for reform to avoid "declining into an advanced form of feeder colleges for the best American universities." During that same timeframe, several wealthy
petrostates in the
Persian Gulf region subsidized the creation of local branches of American universities. When that approach proved insufficient to establish indigenous
research and
startup ecosystems (to support the planned long-term diversification of their economies away from
petroleum), they started to build their own research universities from the ground up by recruiting Western-trained faculty and staff. ==Characteristics==