Welcome to the UW-Madison Graduate School
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Graduate School has overall responsibility for research and graduate education. This dual responsibility reflects the symbiotic relationship between research and graduate education; success in one is closely aligned to success in the other.
Our strength in research is well documented. In 2009, for the first time, annual research expenditures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison surpassed the $1 billion milestone. The National Science Foundation (NSF) showed UW-Madison fiscal year 2009 research expenditures in science and engineering at $952 million, a jump of $70 million from the previous year. UW-Madison research expenditures outside of engineering and science - including the areas of business, education, arts and humanities — totaled $62 million for fiscal 2009. Among 711 universities surveyed, UW-Madison ranks third in science and engineering expenditures, the same ranking as 2008, behind Johns Hopkins and the combined campuses of the University of Michigan System. In the non-sciences area, UW-Madison ranks fifth. Moreover, according to this particular measure of research activity, we are consistently in the top five nationally. Much of this research has been initiated with seed money provided by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the technology transfer arm of the university. We seek to nurture outstanding scholarship across all parts of the intellectual landscape, as reflected by the wide variety of honors that have been garnered by our faculty, staff, and students.
At the same time, we care deeply about graduate education. We have approximately 9,000 graduate students spread across more than one hundred programs. The University of Wisconsin–Madison ranked 10th among public institutions in rankings released in September 2011 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2012 edition of America’s Best Colleges. According to the National Research Council's survey released in 2010, UW-Madison had 40 programs ranked in the top ten in their field of the top 25 institutions included in the survey. We are also proud to be the intellectual home of nearly 2,000 international graduate students from approximately one hundred different countries. The tremendous breadth of academic resources, along with a world renowned faculty, make this university an excellent choice for our students.
Finally, the Graduate School provides an administrative home for a number of multidisciplinary research centers and institutes. These centers involve faculty, staff, and students from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the arts and humanities. Together they generate, on an annual basis, more than $160 million in extramural research awards. They also play an important role in terms of graduate education and outreach.