PARTNER WITH VANDERBILT. We can do extraordinary things — together.
We’re ready to collaborate with you.
You know us as a great university. We can also be a great partner for you.
Radical collaboration is part of our DNA. We work together across boundaries and with our partners, because that’s how we can make big things happen. That’s how we can shape the world.
Vanderbilt is invested in creating an innovation ecosystem in Nashville, in Tennessee, across the country and around the world. As a leading research university, we play a multifaceted role in driving innovation and economic growth and creating opportunity. We conduct research, commercialize technology, educate a skilled workforce, support entrepreneurship, foster collaboration and disseminate knowledge through continuous training and education.
Like you, we are committed, driven and excited about exploring, inventing, discovering and tackling the toughest challenges to make a real-world impact in our communities.
Ready to partner with Vanderbilt?
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Collaboration and discovery. Daring to grow.
Life-changing discoveries happen in environments where every member of the community can grow and learn from one another. We work to create an environment at Vanderbilt in which our students can thrive, our faculty can do their best work, and our partners can unlock their organization’s full potential.
We can work with you to address your unique business and community challenges by creating radically innovative solutions.
68
Unique R&D partners FY24
101
License agreements executed in FY24
$1.3B
Total VU and VUMC research funding
Vanderbilt brings people and perspectives from around the world together to tackle our biggest challenges with diverse, unique talents.
47.6%
total undergraduate racial and ethnic diversity rate, 2023
10 schools and colleges, 85+ centers and institutes, infinite possibilities
Blair School of Music
College of Arts and Science
Divinity School
Graduate School
Law School
Owen Graduate School of Management
Peabody College of Education and Human Development
School of Engineering
School of Medicine
School of Nursing
Our faculty get to know you. And your needs.
Vanderbilt faculty are passionate about what they do and love to innovate, make connections and deliver new discoveries to the world. These renowned experts are skilled at translating their discoveries into real-world applications. They can bring their expertise to your boardroom in the same way that they bring their discoveries and real-world experience into their classrooms and labs every day.
Watch our faculty innovate and discover.
Follow your curiosity. Push
new boundaries. Unlock new ideas.
Our university motto Crescere aude means “dare to grow,” which describes our philosophy and our approach. We like a challenge, so we tackle some of the world’s most urgent and complex problems. We cultivate this environment through training, resources and a culture that measures our success by the impact that we have on the world. Along the way, Vanderbilt students and faculty across a wide range of fields and disciplines engage in the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship that puts us in the company of trailblazing leaders in business, science and industry.
Better together.
A robust local innovation economy—made up of startups, venture capital firms, world-class companies, and government and nonprofit partners—is essential for our researchers to scale their ideas and inventions into real, practical solutions that can make a difference.
Anchoring a strong innovation economy matters, and the time is now. Collaborations between Vanderbilt and corporate partners will help make it happen, yielding meaningful and long-lasting benefits.
Global competitiveness
Foster higher GDP growth and greater influence on the national and global stage through economic development driven by the creation of technologies, industries and services.
More jobs and higher-wage jobs
Create jobs with higher earning potential and create more opportunity for inclusive prosperity.
Knowledge and skill development
Nurture a well-educated and adaptable workforce by prioritizing education and skill development.
Attraction of capital investments, startups, and research and development
Create a virtuous cycle that fuels sustainable growth by attracting startups, capital and more R&D.
Economic resilience
Be less prone to economic shocks by reducing reliance on just one or two industries.
Societal benefit
Enable more breakthroughs at the scale needed to benefit society.
Vanderbilt is a strong anchor for innovation and venture creation. We are a powerhouse for research and innovation, with more than $1.3 billion in annual research expenditures across Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. For two consecutive years, we’ve ranked 10th in the National Science Foundation’s survey of R&D expenditures in higher education.
Our areas of research and expertise include:
Defense and Security
Mobility and Transportation
Energy and Environment
Education and Policy
Computer Science
Data Science and AI
Health and Biotechnology
60+ startups launched in the past decade with Vanderbilt intellectual property
$21.7 million licensing revenue in FY24
We help bring ideas to life and to market with support for innovation and entrepreneurs.
Our Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization drives innovations to market, promotes industry collaborations and supports entrepreneurs launching new ventures.
The Wond’ry, Vanderbilt’s innovation center, helps bring ideas to life by providing tools and resources and removing barriers that stop innovation.
We lead the NSF Mid-South I-Corps Hub, which accelerates the translation of groundbreaking research into commercialized ventures that support innovation ecosystems. The Mid-South Hub connects innovators from across four states (Tennessee, Virginia, Mississippi, Kentucky) and nine institutions.
Ranked sixth nationally for adjusted gross income from technology licensing
Our differences are our greatest strength.
The people who comprise the Vanderbilt community have come here from across the country and around the world, bringing a wide range of talents, backgrounds and perspectives. We collaborate across differences—whether it’s specialties, techniques or points of view— strengthening our community and our results. Our industry partners bring new perspectives as we join forces to take on big challenges, dare to grow and, in achieving our goals, create a better world.
Ask new questions. Stay inspired. Discover. Lead.
Robust collaboration creates meaningful results.
Discovery Vanderbilt sends research soaring
Our faculty love to take on grand challenges, and Vanderbilt launched Discovery Vanderbilt in 2022 to support our best minds as they take on big questions. With a commitment of $80 million, this landmark investment is bringing impressive returns in just a few years with the launch of stateof-the-art centers and institutes, and by developing resources that can help businesses and communities address their own challenges and thrive.
Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research conducts “frontier research” to understand how the brain controls behavior and illuminate how it changes with addiction.
Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery aims to translate advances in basic science to new treatments by “de-risking” innovative approaches for the treatment of serious brain disorders.
Vanderbilt Center for Research on Inequality and Health studies population health science, LGBTQ+ health policy, gun violence, and the health impact of economic and social inequality.
The Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator focuses on cutting-edge topics in political economy and regulation to swiftly bring research, education, and policy proposals from infancy to maturity.
Vanderbilt Center for Sustainability, Energy and Climate will focus on research areas including energy integration, resource sustainability, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Vanderbilt Institute of National Security
Led by retired Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, a world leader in defense and security, the institute will address emerging threats to national and global security from a wide perspective, working across many different fields and forging key partnerships.
“The innovations we are co-developing with our Army partners speak to our culture of use-inspired research and radical collaboration for real-world impact. Together, we are providing new capabilities for our soldiers as well as boosting the innovation economy in Tennessee.”
— Padma Raghavan, Vice Provost for Research and Innovation
Vanderbilt Data Science
Vanderbilt Data Science is a leading research institution for AI and data science studies, whose collaborations with a variety of researchers across many disciplines at Vanderbilt University create lifelong communities and strong relationships at Vanderbilt and beyond.
Dialogue Vanderbilt fosters civil discourse
Teaching students and the broader community the importance of knowing how to constructively discuss challenging topics is among the goals for Dialogue Vanderbilt.
During this sharply divided time among citizens concerning political candidates and societal issues, Dialogue Vanderbilt takes on the vital task of working to restore civil discourse. The initiative also provides a platform for research on how to strengthen free speech globally and develop practical, evidence-based solutions for addressing polarization.
Dialogue Vanderbilt, through the Unity Project and The Future of Free Speech and Open Dialogue Visiting Fellows programs, hosted the Symposium on AI, Free Speech and Human Rights, with guests ranging from Liz Cheney and Bret Stephens to Don Abram and Oksana Markarova, and elevated research on topics ranging from unity and democracy to AI and free speech.
College of Connected Computing to welcome its first students in fall 2026
Vanderbilt is launching a new interdisciplinary college dedicated to computer science, AI, data science and related fields that impact nearly every aspect of life today. The College of Connected Computing will assist in preparing future students with the skill sets they need to pursue careers in technological fields while bringing together cutting-edge computing-based scholarship from across campus.
As an interdisciplinary college, the College of Connected Computing will collaborate with all of Vanderbilt’s schools and colleges to advance breakthrough discoveries and strengthen computing education through a “computing for all” approach.
This marks Vanderbilt’s first new college since Blair School of Music merged with the university in 1981.
Collaborate with Vanderbilt to discover solutions for today’s business challenges.
Building innovation economies requires public and private-sector organizations to work together with a coordinated approach to succeed in the competitive environment for economic development grants and top talent. As Vanderbilt redefines what a great university is and does in the 21st century, we are looking for partners across sectors to work with us to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to expand economies and create greater prosperity for communities across the world.
Vanderbilt is excited and ready to help lead the effort. But it’s going to take collaboration among all of us to make it happen.
Let’s work together to shape tomorrow. Start here. Start now.
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