The National University Community Research Institute (NUCRI) is an entity and institutional resource organized to facilitate National University's commitment to a collaborative future as a full community partner. Essentially, the Institute is a Community Research and Technology Collaborator for Creative and Smart Community Building a Resource Network Partner for Broadening Participation in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) fields through Education, Outreach, Training, and Interdisciplinary Practice and a) Facilitator for Knowledge Mobilization. Moreover, the academically-oriented, practitioner-based Institute is a service provider for professional development online programs, new skills training, and project-based learning.

NUCRI is headed by an Executive Director and University Vice President who also is responsible for a University Consultant Corps (UCC) of resident and telecommute fellows, faculty associates across schools and disciplines, a technical staff, student interns and community practitioners. NUCRI has a Faculty Liaison who is the Associate Director of Community Research and a Senior Fellow who is the Associate Director for Community Technology. NUCRI also has a 15-member Advisory Board drawn from the business, science, technology, education and human services communities.

Through PDX (Professional Development Extension) Online for teachers and community practitioners and its CIERRA (Cyber-Infrastructure Education, Recruitment, Retention, Advancement) initiative, NUCRI offers education, outreach and training programs to broaden participation in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) fields and integrate Cyberinfrastructure into the Humanities Arts, Social Science through Interdisciplinary Practice and Project-based learning.

National University/NUCRI is a member of the nationally-recognized HASTAC Leadership Group (www.hastac.org) and a branding institution for the 2006-07 HASTAC InFormation Year (http://nucri.nu.edu/incommunity). NUCRI also is a community-based research partner with the National City Collaborative/Family Resource Centers and service provider to the University of San Francisco's TEAMS AmeriCorps program and EMS Independent Charter School System teachers for at-risk youth in the Los Angeles Basin. The Institute has a working relationship with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the Illinois Center for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences (ICHASS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, the National Center for Advanced Technology (CeNAT) in Costa Rica, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia