The college is home to four research institutes/centers generally focused in the areas of pharmacoinformatics and drug screening; cardiovascular and renal function/dysfunction; drug-delivery systems, with an emphasis on anti-cancer agents; and behavioral risks and community health outcomes, with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS.

• The Center for Experimental Therapeutics & Pharmacoinformatics (CEPT) promotes interdisciplinary research, education and training and fosters local community collaboration to develop state-of-the-art pharmacoinformatics and in-sillico drug screen methodologists through computational exploration of chemical diversity space and the relationship to biological activities.
• The Center for Population Health Outcomes and Pharmacoepidemiology Education and Research (P-HOPER Center) aims to strengthen the partnership between public health and pharmacy, help remove the barriers to collaborations, and promote the integration of population-based pharmaceuticals outcomes assessment into community health needs assessments, disease surveillance, and monitoring of health outcomes. 
• The Heart and Kidney Institute (HKI) researches the pathophysiological mechanisms and treatment of certain cardiovascular disorders while fostering collaborative research efforts among scientists from UH and other Texas Medical Center institutions.
• The Institute for Drug Education and Research (IDER) serves as a vehicle to educate Ph.D. and Pharm.D./Ph.D. students and postdoctoral associates specifically in the areas of drug delivery and pre-clinical/clinical pharmacokinetics; perform translation research in the development of drug delivery systems for anticancer agents and drugs for other indications; and provide consultation services to the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals and research institutions.
• The Institute of Community Health (ICH) fosters an interdisciplinary environment where investigators can conduct basic, clinical and translation research that will advance knowledge in the field of community health, infectious diseases (primarily HIV/AIDS), promote health and prevent diseases.
• The Prescription Drug Misuse Education and Research (PREMIER) Center seeks to improve patient outcomes by providing education on safe and effective controlled substance prescription use and to serve as a catalyst for collaborative research efforts to optimize pharmacotherapy used to manage pain and substance use disorders.

UH College of Pharmacy also is a founding member of The Dan L. Duncan Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, which is based at Baylor College of Medicine. The ICTR fosters collaboration, training and promotion of clinical and translational research among more than 250 faculty and research staff at its partner institutions.

In addition to BCM and UHCOP, the other founding institutions ICTR are Rice University, Texas Children's Hospital, The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic and Kelsey-Seybold Research Foundation, Harris Health System, CHI St. Luke's Health System and UTHealth (The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston).