The university has been engaged in 92 research projects since it was chartered in 2013 to date. Currently, a total of 54 of these research projects are active and ongoing. The breakdown as per schools is as follows: School of Agriculture and Biotechnology (8); School of Business and Management Sciences (3); School of Economics (2); School of Engineering (4); School of Environmental Studies (7); School of Education (6), School of Human Resource Development (1); School of Natural Resource Management (7); and School of Science (16).

To promote research amongst the staff, the university introduced an internal annual competitive research grant which has been awarded in the last three years. In the year 2017/2018, fourteen research projects worth KSh. 9,005, 000 were funded and are still ongoing. These research projects are addressing issues on food and nutritional security, community livelihoods, aquatic and terrestrial ecology, environmental conservation and management, wildlife ecology and management, diverse socioeconomic issues affecting community wellbeing and development, problems communities are experiencing from natural and anthropogenic factors affecting water quality and ways of mitigating the same, biodiversity conservation, Issues addressing the quality of primary, secondary and tertiary education, climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, business and governance issues.

Several externally funded projects are also being carried out by faculty. Most of these projects are done in collaboration with other partners including national and international universities and also address diverse areas. The donors include the National Research Fund and other international funding agencies. The funds held by the university for these research activities fluctuate very much as the university only keeps them in trust for the researchers who withdraw the money according to their programmed research activities. Unless clearly stated in the agreements, the university normally charges a nominal administration fee of 10% from each research project.