Strategic Initiatives

The Center for Applied Data Science and Analytics will coordinate and facilitate interdisciplinary programs in data science and data analytics; collaborate with other institutes and centers on the campus; expand and coordinate research funding; and develop research and educational linkages that will include internship and placement programs with sponsoring corporations and government agencies.

The Center for Digital Business at Howard University is an educational center that serves as the forum for an expansive set of academic, experiential, and professional programming with a goal of impacting digital business globally through applying best practices in marketing, sales, data management, and technology. The Center for Digital Business encompasses academic and extracurricular programming and job readiness.

The Center for HBCU Research, Leadership, and Policy at Howard University is to become a premier generator and repository of empirical research that examines issues of significance to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and disseminates findings that inform discourse, policy, and practice. The mission of the Center for HBCU Research, Leadership, and Policy is to bring together researchers and practitioners to support a thriving HBCU ecosystem. Goals are to:

1. Produce empirical research studies and offer programs that document the collective strength of HBCUs.
2. Illuminate how HBCUs, as academic and cultural institutions, have challenged formal and informal structures intended to restrict Black opportunity and possibility.
3. Create an inclusive HBCU research network that promotes professional, institutional and scholarly collaboration. 

The Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership at Howard University is an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to advancing the leadership of Black women in the United States and across the African diaspora. Founded in 2020 with a transformative gift from the Murren Family Foundation, the Center has grown into a hub for rigorous research, leadership pipelines, and global convenings that center the experiences and contributions of Black women.

The Howard University PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship is a national consortium and resource hub focused on enhancing entrepreneurship education and empowering entrepreneurs around the country. The National Center supports the launch, growth and acquisition of business ventures by providing access to programs, capital, curriculum, research, skills training, events and other resources. Through this work and network of institutions, the National Center not only impacts students, faculty, staff and alumni, but also reaches business owners and investors in the community, all with the collective goal of empowering an ecosystem for the next generation of entrepreneurship.

The mission of the HPS Center for Financial Excellence in the School of Business is to provide innovative student programming that produces high-caliber graduates for careers in finance, especially in investment and wealth management, commercial and investment banking, real estate, and capital markets.

The Warner Music & Blavatnik Center for Music Business Education focuses on preparing undergraduate and graduate students to become professionals within the music and entertainment industries. This partnership between Howard University and the Warner Music Group will engage with students in three pipelines: 1) a formal fellowship program that directly prepares a select group of students for career opportunities 2) campus exposure to key areas of the business via an Executive in Residence program, and 3) general campus programming for the entire student population.

In 2023, the African American Irish Diaspora Network (AAIDN) organized a strategic consortium of major universities in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the United States for collaboration on the commercialization of select research initiatives and the funding of enterprises spinning out that academic research. The consortium is tentatively named the “US-Ireland Research and Investment Consortium” (USIRI Consortium).

The founding university partners in the USIRI Consortium are the University College Dublin, Queens University Belfast, Princeton University and Howard University. It is envisioned that corporate and investment partnerships would emerge through strategic affiliations with the Consortium. Corporate, foundation and government grants will also be sought to support its research and entrepreneurship initiatives. AAIDN will be a management partner in the Consortium and provide overall coordination, as well as assistance with outreach to and communication with strategic affiliates of the Consortium.