The paper attempts to study the performance of Karnatak University in terms of its research output during 1999-2008 including the number of papers published annually, its growth rate, international collaborative publication share and major collaborative partner countries, citation quality and impact of publications. The publication productivity and impact of university under broad subject areas and departments are also analyzed. This study also identifies and evaluates the characteristics of prolific authors and high-cited papers and pattern of research communication in productive journals. The study also compares the performance of Karnataka University with three other major universities of Karnataka, such as University of Mysore, Mangalore University and Bangalore University on some of the indicators discussed below.