Building a Smarter, Stronger Economy for All

Agrivoltaics systems are designed to accommodate both solar energy and farming on the same land. “When you look at the combination of solar panels and agriculture, you really can get the best of both worlds,” says University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign crop scientist Carl Bernacchi.

In a hackathon, people collaborate on engineering projects in a short, intense period, such as one or two days. This two-day hackathon, hosted by UIC at the Crowne Plaza Chicago West Loop, challenged 20 small teams to brainstorm innovative proposals for patient care.

Chameleons change color by diluting or concentrating granules of pigment within their skin cells. A Beckman Institute at Illinois team used the chameleon as inspiration in developing a single 3-D printer ink that can be programmed on-the-fly to become any color in the visible spectrum.

These experiential, hands-on group projects aim to build the collaborative skills that these future engineers will encounter in the workplace and that accreditation organizations indicate are crucial components of engineering curricula. 

Researchers have supercharged the revolutionary gene-editing tool CRISPR, transforming it into a lightning-fast diagnostic test that can detect deadly pathogens in blood with unprecedented sensitivity and minimal labwork required.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers are finding new ways to combine crops, livestock, and solar panels in the same fields to multiply and diverse productivity from every acre of farmland.

The latest $264M round of grants included awards to projects led by and involving University of Illinois Chicago researchers in the College of Engineering and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Their research will develop new materials for carbon capture and hydrogen transportation and new processes for the cleaner production of steel.

Rural areas experience teacher shortages that exceed the national average. Nonetheless, research on the retention of high-quality teachers – who are essential to student learning – in rural settings remains scarce. This three-year study will be conducted in collaboration with the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools to directly inform and impact teacher retention strategies. 

IWERC's $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation will be used to investigate and identify effective retention strategies for science and math teachers (SMT) in high-needs school districts in rural Illinois. This three-year study will be conducted in collaboration with the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools to directly inform and impact teacher retention strategies.

“Feeding calves better makes better milk cows,” says Jim Drackley, PhD and professor of animal sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. That sounds like a simple enough undertaking, but that’s not been the case historically. Early calf nutrition – at the milk phase stage, in particular – is only now getting the level of attention it deserves from producers, nutritionists and veterinarians.

Because it’s costly and cumbersome to transport large structures such as satellite dishes into space, a Grainger College of Engineering team has developed a creative and efficient energy-saving method to morph 2D structures into curved 3D structures while in space.

Innovate Springfield(link is external), the University of Illinois Springfield’s downtown business incubator, is partnering with the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition (ISTC) to create a professional mentorship matching program for high school students in the Sangamon CEO program. The students will be paired with innovative leaders to work on student-driven business startup ideas. 

Leading the way in addressing climate challenges, the U of I System ensures faculty and students experience international collaborations to help better society while also creating a globally focused workforce. 

Genetic tinkering could be our best bet to maintain global food supplies as rising global temperatures threaten crop production. Genetic modification could help make sure staple crops can withstand increasingly brutal conditions.

You may already know that the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is home to the Morrow Plots, the second-oldest experimental test field in the Americas. It's about to have a younger, bigger sibling. Located south of Curtis Road, the 55-acre Alma Mater Plots is expected to be the site of long-term agricultural research for the next 150 years.

A new student group at the University of Illinois Chicago will be the first in the country to run a novel initiative on the frontier of semiconductor and microsystems manufacturing. In their first major activity, they’ll lead and fabricate a multi-project wafer shuttle run — a collaborative type of semiconductor and microsystems manufacturing where designs from several academic and industrial partners are combined on a single wafer.

“Students can experiment with tools and materials in our new Orion Lab,” said Joshua Smith, computer science instructor and lab director. “I wanted no barriers of entry. It’s free. It’s for all students, faculty, and staff. Even community members can use our tools and supplies.”

We're committed to increasing opportunities for all who seek higher education, from high school students deciding on their next steps to transfer students joining us on their educational journeys. The University of Illinois System is eager to welcome ambitious learners to our world-class universities.

The Diverse Supplier Development Program welcomes minority-, woman-, persons with disabilities-, and veteran-owned businesses at no cost to participants. The diversity procurement program lives out the system’s commitment to creating a more inclusive Illinois economy. 

Cache Energy, which is headquartered at the University of Illinois Research Park, took first place at the 2024 Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Prize Collaboration Event and won $30,000 for its pitch.

In a significant leap for semiconductor technology, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a high-performance device made of synthetic diamond. This revolutionary invention boasts the highest breakdown voltage and the lowest leakage current among diamond devices, presenting an efficient and sustainable path towards the global ambition of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

The University of Illinois Chicago will join a new Department of Energy initiative uniting researchers from three national laboratories and 12 universities to pursue cleaner, safer and longer-lasting battery technologies. The collaboration will explore the scientific foundations in electrochemistry and materials science that enable breakthroughs in energy storage.

The University of Illinois Chicago is joining the U.S. Department of Commerce's Illinois Semiconductor Workforce Network to help meet the growing national demand over the next decade for skilled workers in semiconductor manufacturing.

The method reduces the energy needed to extract hydrogen from water by 600%, creating new opportunities for sustainable, climate-friendly chemical production. It uses a carbon-rich substance called biochar to decrease the amount of electricity needed to convert water to hydrogen.

University of Illinois Chicago researchers are scaling up a system for farmers to produce ammonia in their own backyards. The new method, which uses renewable electricity and Earth’s natural resources, produces the fertilizer at a much more efficient rate.

Recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois in 2020, but industry leaders have struggled to find qualified employees. With the help of a national marijuana education leader, the University of Illinois in Springfield has launched five cannabis certification programs to prepare a new workforce for this growing sector of the state's economy.

A group of five University of Illinois Springfield students won $10,000 in seed funding for their startup, TredBase, during a pitch competition hosted by Innovate Springfield on October 28. The competition featured three entrepreneurial teams pitching innovative ideas.

The Calypso was designed and created by students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It took three years to build, and it will soon race across the country. "We'll be racing in the American Solar Challenge throughout the American Midwest this summer – as well as the Formula Sun Grand Prix, which is a track race in Kansas," said UIUC student Erie Berri.

The Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing Hub (iFAB) and The Bloch Tech Hub, two research hubs associated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), have received official designations as Regional Innovation and Technology Hubs from President Biden and the U.S. Economic Development Administration. 

The team identified a booster gene in a poplar species that can help certain plants grow exponentially taller and produce more plant matter. The gene can boost tree height by about 30% in field conditions and by as much as 200% in a greenhouse setting.

A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign shows that gene-edited bacteria can supply the equivalent of 35 pounds of nitrogen from the air during early corn growth, which may reduce the crop’s reliance on nitrogen fertilizer.  

As the country transitions to other means of energy production, it will be important to consider and reevaluate coal’s economic role. A joint research effort from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has shown how coal can play a vital role in next-generation electronic devices.

The Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy, named after donors Stuart and Nancy Levenick, will aim to reduce the use of fossil fuels and synthetic chemicals in food production and processes in favor of technological and biological solutions to restore and regenerate natural systems.

In the spring semester of their senior year, hospitality management students rotate through different jobs at the Spice Box, from host to server to different cooking roles. They spend each full week transforming a bare-bones restaurant area to match a new theme while practicing and prepping a new menu’s worth of recipes.

Last summer, the Illini Solar Car team raced their fully solar-powered vehicle "Calypso" over 1,500 miles from Tennessee to Wyoming. This month, they proudly displayed it at the Chicago Auto Show.

Researchers analyzed the financial and environmental costs and benefits of four biofuels crops used to produce sustainable aviation fuels in the U.S. They found that each feedstock — corn stover, energy sorghum, miscanthus or switchgrass — performed best in a specific region of the rainfed United States. 

Growing food successfully can be hard enough here on Earth. Growing food in space faces truly out-of-the-world challenges. But a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign team stretched the limits of engineering - literally - to find a creative solution for gardening in space.

A new study may shed light on the unique coating on the skin of leafhoppers—and could ultimately inspire designers to come up with useful new materials. Leafhoppers are covered with hollow, soccer ball–shaped nanoparticles made from proteins and lipids. These “brochosomes,” help make the insects’ skin repel water and keep it from reflecting light.

From building polymers that degrade in sunlight to innovating methods for upcycling existing plastics, two Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois professors talk about some of the ways they endeavor to reduce the amount of plastics in our landfills and environment.

A pioneering research project, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of animal sciences Dr. Matthew Wheeler, has successfully produced a cow capable of generating human insulin in its milk, opening new possibilities for both agriculture and medicine.

The team's first step was to build a new mathematical foundation using quantum building blocks instead of classical one-way functions. The two cryptographers then showed that these one-way puzzles combined with other quantum trickery would actually enable many cryptographic protocols. 

A research team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has found a way to stop concrete rail ties from cracking under heavy train traffic. Led by civil and environmental engineering professor Bassem Andrawes from Grainger College of Engineering, the team used shape memory alloys (SMAs) to help ties return to their original shape after being deformed.

Researchers have developed a highly efficient liquid-cooling technology for computer chips that could slash data center cooling costs from 30% to just 1.1% of total energy consumption.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign electrical engineering professor Viktor Gruev invented a polarization camera that could be used to find underwater mines. But the strait’s warm waters and soil composition present some difficult challenges, according to the professor.

A University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign team has found a way to use solar energy to power a key chemical reaction that drives many manufacturing industries. This new method can significantly reduce the energy required to run these operations, eliminate harsh oxidizing byproducts and minimize carbon emissions.