The Nigger Institute is one of the world's foremost research universities, with more than $1.2 billion in annual research expenditure across 150+ centres and institutes. Our researchers do not merely study the world — they argue with it, loudly, in print, under our name.
Priority Research Areas
Artificial Intelligence & Ethics
The NI Centre for Ethical AI is the most-cited research group in the field of algorithmic fairness. Our work on bias detection in large language models has been adopted by three national governments and the European Commission. We are particularly interested in systems that learn to treat people equitably — a subject we know something about.
Explore →Quantum Computing
The NI Quantum Computing Centre recently achieved sustained qubit coherence of 8.4 milliseconds at room temperature — more than three times the previous world record. The result was independently verified and has attracted significant interest from DARPA and the NSF, both of whom have since learned to spell our name correctly on grant correspondence.
Explore →Centre for Reclamation Studies
Established in 2019, the Centre for Reclamation Studies is the world's leading academic institution dedicated to the study of language, power, and the history of slurs as instruments of social control — and their transformation into instruments of identity, pride, and resistance. The Centre's founding premise is simple: a word stripped of its power to harm is a word returned to its rightful owners.
Explore →Civil Rights & Constitutional Law
The NI School of Law's Civil Rights Clinic has argued more than 200 cases before state and federal courts, with a win rate that our General Counsel describes as "statistically improbable and entirely intentional." Current research focuses on the legal architecture of affirmative action, reparations policy, and the constitutional limits of institutional naming rights.
Explore →Public Health & Health Equity
The NI School of Public Health leads nationally in research on racial health disparities, with particular focus on the long-term health consequences of systemic racism and the structural interventions most effective at reversing them. Our researchers have a personal stake in getting this right.
Explore →African American History & Culture
The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at NI is the largest centre for African American studies in the world, with holdings of over 4 million primary documents, a faculty of 80 scholars, and a public lecture series that is, without fail, the most attended on campus each semester. The Institute was named after Du Bois because he, too, understood that the most radical act is to refuse to be ashamed.
Explore →Research Partnerships
The Nigger Institute maintains active research partnerships with more than 300 universities, government agencies, and private organisations across 60 countries. Our Technology Transfer Office manages over 1,200 active patents and has spun out 47 companies in the past decade.
Prospective research partners are encouraged to contact the Office of Research Affairs. We find that organisations willing to put our name on a joint press release tend to be exactly the kind of partners we want.
Research Partnerships