Universities throughout the world are in a new research era. UConn was no exception in 2025, a year defined by significant advancement in Connecticut’s quantum future and support for the research enterprise through a wave of shifting federal policy.
While quantum and artificial intelligence drove headlines, UConn also saw innovations in health care, energy research, and much more. In the process, research continued to help propel the state’s economy and bring together leaders from across government, industry, and academia.
“We faced a year like no other, filled with unprecedented challenges to higher education and the very nature of research,” says Lindsay DiStefano, UConn’s interim vice president for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. “Yet through every hurdle or changing circumstance, our researchers remained steadfast in their commitment to serving our students, propelling research to unparalleled levels, and supporting one another.”
All Things Quantum
UConn plunged headfirst into quantum research and innovation in 2025. The state awaits a National Science Foundation decision on a historic proposal, QuantumCT, which seeks to establish Connecticut as the nation’s leading accelerator of quantum technology. UConn and Yale lead the proposal, which is a finalist for the NSF Regional Engines Program and up to $160 million in funding.
In December, NSF evaluators traveled to Connecticut to meet with UConn, Yale, and state leaders at Yale’s campus in New Haven. The city stands to become the quantum hub for the region, with optimal geography, building of critical infrastructure, and the world-class expertise represented by the two major research universities.
The state has pledged millions of dollars in support, recognizing the impact to Connecticut’s economy and workforce that the grant could make possible.
“Connecticut has always been the most innovative state in the country,” Gov. Ned Lamont said at a press conference in November. “This goes back hundreds of years. This is just in our DNA. This is why we are who we are. This is why we we’re leading the next quantum revolution.”
The NSF also made visits to the other nine finalists for the award, narrowed down from a field of more than 70 submissions. While the state awaits the results, leaders have lauded the historic connection that has developed between Yale and UConn.
“We have built an alliance of quantum technology between our universities,” said UConn interim Provost Pamir Alpay, who led the QuantumCT proposal. “Our faculty and students are working together and are deeply engaged with our industrial partners, many of whom are here today, representing the sectors that make Connecticut the envy of the nation.”
As the state prepared for the NSF site visit, UConn deepened its quantum connection with the establishment of the Quantum Alliance, consisting of faculty researchers across several colleges, schools, and programs. All members (more than 90 and counting) are conducting or integrating quantum into their independent and collaborative research.
In the fall, UConn’s Stamford campus hosted an Economics Forum centered on the impact of quantum and artificial intelligence. The region represents some key sectors of the Connecticut economy, such as finance and tech development, where quantum and AI skills are becoming mandatory.
“We’ve lived through three great industrial revolutions, mechanization, electrical, and the Internet. Each changed the way we worked, built, and connected with one another,” Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons said. “But the fourth Industrial Revolution, the one we are in right now, is different. It’s driven not by invention, but by a fusion of technologies, like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and robotics.”
Milestones in Athletic, Occupational Safety
UConn’s Korey Stringer Institute (KSI) celebrated a milestone in November with the opening of a brand new, state-of-the-art heat safety lab inside Gampel Pavilion in Storrs. The 750-square-foot lab expands research into the impacts of heat, humidity, sun, wind, and even altitude, with a focus on safeguarding athletes, warfighters, and laborers.
KSI has been a global leader in heat safety research since its founding in 2010. Its work has improved health and safety across the country, saving the lives of student athletes of all ages. Led by Douglas Casa, a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology, the Institute has helped shape policy and better prepared athletic trainers and first responders to respond to crises on the field or in the gym.
“Every single day, I’m trying to figure out what can we learn about the prevention, recognition, and treatment of exertional heat stroke,” said Casa. “Can we prevent families having to suffer tragedies of their kids dying from a heat stroke, or a spouse losing a loved one who is a laborer or war fighter who suffers a heat stroke or struggles in the heat?”
UConn researchers made other important advancements in health and medicine. The University-led Network for Advanced NMR (NAN) expanded its reach, adding three more facilities across the country to improve access to resources and expertise in the field.
NMR has applications in many scientific disciplines, including structural biology, chemistry, and materials science. NMR is also becoming an important diagnostic tool in medicine. By analyzing bodily fluids such as urine, doctors can make earlier diagnoses of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and biomarkers indicating chronic kidney disease.
NAN already had collaborative facilities at UConn Health in Farmington, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Georgia. It is expanding through the Midwest and West Coast, linking instruments housed at the Ohio State University, the University of Nebraska, and the University of California–Santa Cruz.
UConn also made inroads in the study of addiction and opioid overdose. In the past year, suspected non-fatal overdoses from opioids increased 39% in Connecticut, based on emergency room admissions data.
A team of UConn researchers identified several key risk factors associated with non-fatal overdoses, drawing from data collected from a sample of opioid users. The researchers found that nearly half of the 199 participants had experienced a non-fatal overdose in their lifetime. This is significantly higher than the rate observed in previous studies, which found between 11 and 36% of their study population had experienced an overdose.
The researchers hypothesize that the higher rate they observed could be due to a number of factors including ongoing polysubstance use patterns, socioeconomic challenges, homelessness, and lack of access to harm reduction services.
Energy and the Environment
The UConn Tech Park has established itself as a hub for fuel cell research as reliance on energy data centers continues to increase. UConn is built for the moment, with its pioneering work in fuel cells providing tangible evidence of how this technology can be used to support the important work underway at data centers nationwide.
UConn’s research in fuel cells dates back decades, with its Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center founded in 2001 as the precursor to today’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering (C2E2). Now, as the Innovation Partnership Building transitions to being fully powered by fuel cell technology, the University has increased its own electricity output while also reducing reliance on the local energy grid.
Meanwhile, UConn and its partners are successfully safeguarding Connecticut’s communities from the effects of violent storms. A team of researchers from UConn-based Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) has created a collaborative network of scientists, engineers, policy experts, and other stakeholders to provide communities with the critical data, improved models, and technical standards they need to develop and implement climate-resilient policy and strategies.
Economic Impact
Like other global universities, UConn has seen new challenges to research that go beyond federal funding policy changes. The role of modern research universities is evolving to erase skepticism of purpose and raise confidence about academia.
UConn research continues to help generate activity in the state economy, with an impact measured at more than $8.7 billion. The University has extended its roots through more than a century of discovery and innovation. Connecticut communities benefit greatly from UConn research, as evident by a “Grant Trails” map highlighting the town-by-town impact of researchers’ work.
