The Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities (HSRU) is comprised of all 21 leading research universities designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Launched in August 2022, our goal by 2030 is to double the number of Hispanic doctoral students enrolled at our universities and increase the Hispanic professoriate by 20%.

Both the Alliance and Crossing Latinidades: Emerging Scholars and New Comparative Directions emerged from a 2020 convening of approximately 100 leaders and faculty from 16 universities who were committed to increasing educational access and promoting Latinx humanities scholarship. The convening was made possible by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation to the University of Illinois Chicago.

University leaders organized a board of chancellors and presidents that became the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities, while the Mellon Foundation awarded $5 million to the University of Illinois Chicago to create Crossing Latinidades, which is supporting new interdisciplinary Latino humanities scholarship across member institutions.