Spotlight On: Vincent Price, President, Duke University

June 2026 — Invest: spoke with Vincent Price, president of Duke University, about how the institution is strengthening research, expanding experiential learning, and deepening its role in regional economic development. “We are not just in North Carolina, we are of North Carolina, and we are for North Carolina,” Price said.

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How do your strategic priorities around empowering people, transforming education, and building community translate into tangible changes on campus today?

They translate into a variety of initiatives we have undertaken. In terms of empowering people, we are leaning heavily into science and technology. We have significantly advanced our capabilities in a variety of areas, including quantum computing, material science, and brain and body resilience. We are moving forward with a focus on building a strong research ecosystem to support large ideas, particularly interdisciplinary initiatives. We have advanced computational humanities and society-centered AI, so all of these represent significant new investments in our faculty, financial aid investments for our students, and material investments in new companies.

In terms of preparing ourselves to lead as we redefine teaching and learning in the next century, we have produced extraordinary new programs built around experiential learning. We implemented an entirely new model for residential life on our campus to strengthen our community and make housing selections more predictable and more navigable for students. We instituted a week-long Experiential Orientation program for all students to build strong relationships. We have advanced a wide variety of group-based, problem-solving experiential educational programs, including major changes to our design elements in engineering and a seminar-focused set of new programs in arts and sciences.

We launched a new tuition initiative for students from North and South Carolina. We have doubled the percentage of incoming undergraduates who come from families that are eligible for Pell Grants. These are material investments in people, as well as our programs.

By way of purposeful partnerships, we have launched a new center for community-engaged scholarship on our campus. We are driving community engagement across the entire institution. We launched, in collaboration with Durham Technical Community College, our health system, and Durham Public Schools, Durham Early College of Health Sciences, a new early college high school that is designed to prepare students directly for careers at Duke Health.

Then we are looking to our network of Duke alumni, as well as friends of Duke University, by articulating a new global vision. We have a campus in Kunshan, China, as well as a medical school that we operate in Singapore at the National University of Singapore. We have strong programs in global health, programs addressing climate change on a global scale, and we are advancing sustainable economic development across the globe.

How is Duke adapting its strategy to remain resilient while continuing to invest in research and innovation amid financial and public pressures?

First, we want to make sure that we are as efficient as possible and as wise in our expenditures as we can be. At our high-water mark a few years ago, we were spending $1.5 billion on research. About $1 billion of that was federally supported research. As the envelope for federal research support has contracted, we have had to make necessary adjustments as well.

We have pressures on international student enrollment, so there are a variety of factors that have led us to conclude that we will need to be a bit smaller going forward and more efficient. We led a major strategic realignment last spring and through the summer, and successfully removed about 9% of our annual operating expense from our university’s budget. 

These are thoughtful but aggressive and necessary steps that position us well in this new world.

Financially, we headed into these difficult circumstances in outstanding condition. We have adequate cash reserves and a sizable endowment, but as we look to the likelihood of smaller endowment returns in the future, we are being thoughtful about making sure that we are operating as efficiently as possible. 

How are Duke’s investments in science, technology, and interdisciplinary research shaping the university’s role in solving global challenges?

Since 2020, research and activity in science and technology have produced more than 1,600 invention disclosures and generated nearly $500 million in licensing revenue. Duke Capital Partners, which is an early investment program that we operate, has invested $70 million in Duke-affiliated startups.

Our startups have raised $2.4 billion of capital in the past five years. We have had five IPOs, 14 acquisitions, and close to 60% of these companies have remained in North Carolina, ensuring that these Duke innovations play a role in advancing economic development here in our home state.

Secondly, we run a number of collaborative and deeply interdisciplinary programs. We have a program called Data+ that identifies external partners who have data-related challenges or problems and are in need of solutions. We assemble teams to address those problems. In the last several years, we have launched 140 different Data+ projects. A third of those are in the computational humanities.

How do you build a truly global academic network while maintaining a strong institutional identity and core?

We are not just in North Carolina; we are of North Carolina, and we are for North Carolina. Our research activities, and indeed our educational activities, have global reach, but our roots are firmly embedded here in North Carolina. There is no real distinction between the value that we provide for the world and the value that we generate right here in North Carolina.

Perhaps the most significant effort that we have undertaken is what we call HomeGrown. This initiative is trying to drive as much economic opportunity for residents of Durham and the Triangle region as possible across areas where we know we can have a direct impact on economic mobility. We are looking at employment pathways, construction opportunities, local business partnerships, and ways that we can partner regionally to produce more affordable housing and increase homeownership.

That economic activity has allowed us to identify direct targets for expansion over the next three years, which will produce another $203 million of investment in our region. The heart and soul of the enterprise is here in Durham, North Carolina.

How are Duke’s residential and experiential learning models reshaping the undergraduate experience?

Our models are reshaping the undergraduate experience in fundamental ways. We are a residential campus. The vast majority of our students, 85%, are residential here at Duke. We are creating a living and learning environment that accesses our research activity, all of our educational offerings, and the rich offerings we have in athletics and arts and culture, and frames all of it as part of a comprehensive educational experience.

The common denominator for us has been experiential educational programs. We are making sure that we present opportunities for active problem-solving and that those opportunities are, wherever possible, group-based. That allows our students to put their knowledge to work and to create more opportunities for deep learning.

In a world where artificial intelligence is going to be a major feature as we go forward, it is that deep ability to leverage a comprehensive understanding of the human experience that will distinguish the best users of artificial intelligence from those who are using it as a shortcut.

What should be the value proposition of universities in a time of AI and rapid disruption?

We are thinking deeply about artificial intelligence. Our approach has been to understand that this is a fundamental shift in the application of technology in human life. It is transforming the way we interact, conduct business, organize information, and consume media.

For us, it means when we invest in science and technology, it is the intersection of that science and technology with the rest of life that takes on even more importance. It is no longer technology for technology’s sake. It is how that technology intersects with healthcare, public policy, law, environmental science, and every other aspect of our work.

The fact that we are all walking around with another brain in our pockets should allow the brain in our head to become more powerful, not less. We need to ensure that artificial intelligence does not supplant our investments in human intelligence.

We are building out computing and artificial intelligence across all 10 of our schools. It is not specific to engineering. It is across the entire institution. We are firmly of the view that responsible deployment of these technologies has to come from institutions of higher learning because we can think about the most responsible ways to deploy them.

We have a university-wide center for society-centered artificial intelligence, and we think that is a vital role for institutions of higher learning. We are leaning into artificial intelligence, embracing it with a reasonable degree of skepticism, and with a focus on realizing its greatest opportunities while avoiding its risks.

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