Columbia University has shelled out $2.5 million for a study that doesn’t exactly involve genome mapping or economic theory.

It focuses on something far more interesting: the sexual habits of its students.

“The trustees of Columbia wrote a $2.5 million check to the faculty and said, ‘Figure this out. What’s going on with sex and the sex lives of students?’ ” sociology professor and lead researcher Shamus Khan said during a recent talk, according to Politico on Friday.

“My life over the past two years has been thinking about college students and sex, and it’s both really boring and really disturbing in sort of twin ways,” Khan said.

For the study, Khan and other professors infiltrated bars and parties to secretly watch students’ behavior.

As The Post has reported, some students were seriously creeped out to know they were going under the microscope as they bellied up to the bar and flirted.

Khan said researchers interviewed more than 150 students “about how they have sex.” Researchers also have been “doing a random population survey of the student body, designing an app and having students check in every day about their mood, socialization, sexual practices,’’ he added.

The project was recently completed and its findings are slated to be published soon, according to Politico.

The research came about in 2015 after then-Columbia senior Emma Sulkowicz took to campus carrying around a dorm mattress in protest of the Ivy League school’s alleged lack of action against another student she claimed raped her. She even carried the twin mattress to her 2015 graduation.

The research project — dubbed “SHIFT,” or Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation — “examines the many factors that shape sexual health and sexual violence for undergrads at Columbia,” according to a Web site for the project.

Jennifer Hirsch, a Columbia professor and research member, told The Post on Friday that the issue is “of paramount importance to colleges and universities across the nation.”

The study’s findings are expected “to include suggestions for policy changes to improve sexual health at Columbia,” according to the school’s newspaper.