Research I university was a category previously used by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to indicate those universities that engaged in extensive research activity.
In the 1994 edition of the Carnegie Classification, Research I universities were defined as those which:
The Carnegie Foundation reported that 59 institutions met these criteria in 1994.[2]
In their interim 2000 edition of the classification, the Carnegie Foundation renamed the category "Doctoral/research universities-extensive" to "avoid the inference that the categories signify quality differences."[3] The Foundation replaced their single classification system with a multiple classification system in their 2005 comprehensive overhaul of the classification framework [3][4] so that the term "Research I university" is no longer valid, although many universities still use the term.