About Marquette University
Dedicated to serving God by serving our students, faculty, and staff, Marquette University contributes to the advancement of knowledge by searching for truth, discovering and sharing knowledge, fostering personal and professional excellence, promoting a life of faith, and developing service leadership in others.
Focus Areas
Higher educationFaculty and undergraduate researchHuman health and performanceWater quality and environmental researchAddiction and mental health researchHumanities and community engagementEntrepreneurship and technology transfer
Who They Fund
undergraduate studentsgraduate studentsfaculty and researchersCatholic and Jesuit faith communities
About Marquette University
Marquette University’s recent funding is anchored by research awards to the Medical College of Wisconsin, including a $1,262,871 grant in 2024 and a $890,970 grant in 2023. Those awards sit alongside a grantmaking profile that reaches beyond campus into health research, engineering, community partnerships, and technology commercialization. The foundation’s active programs show that it funds both investigator-driven and challenge-based work: Marquette Research & Innovation’s Explorer Challenge 2.0 solicits ideas for innovation and entrepreneurial projects, while NIH-linked awards support COVID-19 detection, wastewater surveillance, and maternal-child health research. Recent grants also include support for institutions such as the University of Illinois, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago, indicating a mix of university research and applied collaborations. The foundation’s broader institutional mission emphasizes knowledge creation, service leadership, and faith-informed education, which aligns with its support for undergraduate and graduate research, faculty development, and community engagement. Across the latest grants on file, the pattern is consistent: research is the dominant mode, but not the only one.
What Marquette University Funds
Health and biomedical research appears prominently in Marquette University’s recent grants. It gave $197,866 in 2023 to Milwaukee Public Schools for research, and $197,212 in 2024 to Lutheran Social Services for other work tied to that portfolio. In engineering and applied science, the foundation awarded $710,334 in 2024 to Mahle Powertrain LLC for research, along with $273,374 in 2023 to Raytheon Technologies Corporation and $260,296 in 2024 to CZERO Inc., both for research. Higher education research partnerships are also visible: the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois received $213,271 in 2023 and $193,752 in 2024 for research, while Northwestern University received $72,769 in 2024 for research. The active Explorer Challenge 2.0 adds an innovation and entrepreneurship track through Marquette Research & Innovation.
How Marquette University Gives
Marquette University’s typical grant size sits at a p25 of $15,000, a median of $41,036, and a p75 of $114,858. The recent-grants list shows repeated awards to the same recipients across years, including the Medical College of Wisconsin, Near West Side Partners, the Board of Trustees University of Illinois, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Raytheon Technologies Corporation, Florida State University, University of Miami, University of Chicago, and Lutheran Social Services. That repetition points to ongoing relationships rather than one-off awards. The foundation is a university-based funder with a regional scope, and one of its active programs, Explorer Challenge 2.0, explicitly accepts unsolicited idea forms. Other active programs are tied to FOAs, including NIH emergency and RADx-rad funding.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$5.2M
Total Assets
$2.2B
Total Revenue
$840M
Total Expenses
$747.1M
Typical Grant Size
Most grants fall between $15K and $115K, with a median of $41K.
25th Percentile
$15K
Median
$41K
75th Percentile
$115K
Geographic Reach
Regional16 states funded
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
Leadership
Dr Michael R Lovell
President
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Where Marquette University Funds
Top 4 recipient countries by grant volume for Marquette University.
| Rank | Country | Grants | Total | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United StatesDomestic | 145 | $16.1M | 94.8% |
| 2 | Australia | 5 |
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