The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, UNR spent $144 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 139th in the nation. The campus is home to the large-scale structures laboratory in the College of Engineering, which has put Nevada researchers at the forefront nationally in a wide range of civil engineering, earthquake and large-scale structures testing and modeling. The Nevada Terawatt Facility, located on a satellite campus of the university, includes a terawatt-level Z-pinch machine and terawatt-class high-intensity laser system – one of the most powerful such lasers on any college campus in the country.