A Penn initiative recently reflected on the University’s growth as a research institution during the World War II era.
The second installment of the series, “Chapters of Change” highlighted Penn’s expanded focus on research during and after the war — a shift driven by large national investments in scientific innovation. In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, history of education professor Jonathan Zimmerman described the period as the “birth of what today we call big science.”
“It's in the wake of the second World War that we see the creation of the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control — these giant governmental units which also funnel gigantic amounts of money to universities,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman explained that the wartime era also changed how research operated at the University — senior researchers began mentoring younger faculty and expanded the University’s work beyond “basic” research. He noted that the GI Bill passed in 1944 made higher education more accessible and contributed to the growth of Penn’s student population.
The examination of postwar research comes in light of Penn Forward, a University-wide initiative to shape Penn’s future that will inform upcoming research goals. The framework established six working groups that formulated recommendations about a particular domain of University action.
In an interview with the DP last month, Penn’s Vice Provost for Research David Meaney said that consulting group McKinsey & Company helped structure meetings for the Research Strategy and Financing working group, which he co-chaired. The group consolidated around 150 ideas into “a smaller number of bigger ideas,” according to Meaney.
The working group’s other co-chair Michael Ostap, who is a professor of physiology at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, added at the time that there was a “range of views” in the group, in which those who “lead big organizations” had “very broad institutional perspectives,” while research trainees and assistant professors provided input from their peers and colleagues.
While the federal government continues to fund scientific research at institutions of higher education, a key part of that system is allowing universities to have “autonomy” over their own research, according to Zimmerman.
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“One of the original rationales for academic freedom was precisely that you need it in order to have real intellectual growth,” he added.
In October 2025, the White House approached Penn and eight other institutions with a request to sign the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” — a sweeping set of principles that would give the schools preferential access to federal funding in exchange for committing to significant governance and policy reforms.
Looking ahead, Zimmerman said it is important for the University to continue to “hold fast” to “the principle of academic freedom.” He referenced the compact, where the Trump administration offered universities “the front of the line on getting research dollars” if they agreed to certain conditions, including ones related to student admissions and faculty selection.
“We are autonomous agents,” he added. “Even though [they’re] funding us, we get to decide what we do with that money.”
Several Penn affiliates played important roles in the wartime effort — including former professor Albert Newton Richards, who helped produce penicillin, and former Penn President Gaylord Harnwell, who led the war research division at the University of California’s naval radio and sound lab. Many such figures returned to the University after the war and became leaders in their fields.
Five years after the war, Penn ranked 10th among universities receiving federal funding, much of it from the Office of Scientific Research and Development — the wartime agency created to coordinate scientific progress. Research investment continued to expand in the decades that followed, shaping institutions and facilities such as the Wharton School, David Rittenhouse Laboratory, and what would later become Penn Medicine.
