Our Impact

students looking out onto Portland

Driving Portland's Economic, Social and Cultural Resurgence 

At PSU, we know there’s more than one way to serve the city. From our urban campus, we train the future workforce and help students thrive. We turn research into on-the-ground impact. We tackle complex issues by building public impact-focused partnerships. And we provide spaces for community connection and discourse in our lecture halls, plazas, recreation fields, community gardens and greenspaces. All to build a better future for our city and the people who call it home.

Students collaborating

Putting new ideas into action

PSU researchers are working to ready the city for a potential earthquake, strengthen the region’s defenses against wildfires, prepare diverse students for careers in the semiconductor industry and more.

Read more about PSU research
VSC Exterior

Investing in the future of Portland

Portland State is downtown Portland’s most active developer having completed capital projects worth $884 million, including seven major building projects since 2010. It’s just one piece of the university’s $1.8 billion annual economic impact on the region.

Read about PSU’s newest project

11,274

jobs

$92.5M

in research expenditures

$1.8B

in economic impact

1M

student service hours

5,500+

degrees awarded annually

Stories of Impact

Students researching green energy

PSU Partnership Seeks to Unlock Floating Offshore Wind Potential

A collaboration between researchers from Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering and Portland State University aims to help unlock the vast potential of floating offshore windfarms in the United States by improving understanding of wind-wave-turbine interactions.

Architecture students Pickathon stage

PSU Architecture Students Design and Build Stage for Pickathon Festival

PSU Architecture students have returned to Pendarvis Farm to design and build an original performance stage at the annual Pickathon festival, continuing the school’s “diversion design-build” tradition of repurposing materials from other uses to create an innovative, sustainable, minimal-waste performance environment. 

Multi-use building in Portland

Partnership with PSU Helps Metro Guide Investment and Development

Metro — the regional government in the Portland area — strategically invests in transit-oriented development, or TOD, to help more people live in neighborhoods served by high-quality transit. In a partnership going back nearly twenty years, PSU has supported the Metro TOD program by collecting data on residents' travel habits. 

Smoke blanketing Portland

PSU Researchers Work to Strengthen Region’s Defenses Against Wildfires

The climate crisis has increased the frequency and intensity of wildfires in the western United States. At PSU, researchers are working to increase wildfire awareness, prevention and mitigation in the Pacific Northwest, undertaking their effort from different angles, which fits the complexity of the issue.

student collaborating

PSU Awarded NSF Grant to Launch Innovative Semiconductor Internship Program

The new program will reinforce PSU’s commitment to equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and its role as a key player in Oregon's thriving Silicon Forest ecosystem. It aims to serve as a model for institutions seeking to bridge the gap between academia and industry and promote diversity in high-tech fields.

Image of Portland State banner

PSU Launches New School of Earth, Environment, and Society

PSU’s new School of Earth, Environment, and Society joins together multiple disciplines focused on understanding and addressing some of the most pressing and complex issues of our time from climate change and adaptation to environmental and climate justice to human health and cultural diversity.