A university focused on big discoveries that drive big solutions
Prosperity will flourish when Oregon State research is fully powered up for excellence — intentionally concentrated in domains in which we are uniquely competitive and distinctive, making the most of our capacity for collaborative transdisciplinary discovery and leveraging entrepreneurship and public engagement. To begin embedding this culture of high strategic focus, this plan outlines four initial research areas where OSU has clear opportunities to build a global reputation and exert extraordinary impact: climate science and related solutions, robotics, clean energy and related solutions, and integrated health and biotechnology. In all cases, we will pursue these ambitions with transdisciplinary teams that work across the sciences, engineering, arts, social sciences and humanities.
Our intention to go big in selected areas will require a new mindset in how we prioritize, fund, staff, collaborate and problem-solve. We are confident that strategic, targeted investments will lift the entire university, open new opportunities in every discipline and create social, economic and environmental solutions with big impacts.
These focused initiatives will also create enduring university-community partnerships that will serve the state, the nation and the world far beyond the timeline of this plan: bridging differences, combating misinformation, inspiring more effective stewardship and facilitating greater civic participation. As we build these strengths, we will do so in ways that grow and sustain resilient, collaborative relationships with diverse community stakeholders, incorporate many ways of learning and knowing, and co-create solutions with benefits that are distributed fairly and equitably.