UMass Dartmouth’s designation as a doctoral university was finalized this week by The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

The university first received the designation on Jan. 4, and the classification became official on Feb. 2 when Carnegie released its final 2015 classification list. The school is now part of the “Doctoral University – Higher Research Activity” category.

Other New England schools with this designation are UMass Boston, UMass Lowell, University of Maine, University of Rhode Island and University of Vermont.

UMass Dartmouth was previously designated as a Master’s University.

The university’s research enterprise has grown from $21.2 million to $28.2 million since 2005, with most of the sponsored research activity in marine science and engineering. UMass Dartmouth now offers 12 doctoral programs, and the number of annual PhDs awarded has grown from 3 to 26 since 2010.