an astonishing 165% increase in R&D spending at UL in seven years. The 2019 amount placed UL among the top 23 percent of the 647 research universities; current rankings are not yet available. It is the stated mission of UL's Strategic Plan to reach Carnegie Classification Research 1 status and surpassing the $100 million threshold is a major step in that direction. The university receives more research money than all of the other ULS schools, combined, and is rated one of the top 100 public research universities in the nation according to a 2010 report by The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. In 2012, it became the first Louisiana university designated as an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. The Center for Visual and Decision Informatics is the only NSF Center in the nation that focuses on data science, big data analytics, and visual analytics.
=== New Iberia Research Center ===
UL's New Iberia Research Center in New Iberia conducts basic and applied research on several species …
