Our Mission

To create, integrate, transfer and apply knowledge.

Our Objective

To sustain and strengthen our position of preeminence in research and higher education.

University of Wisconsin-Madison: Building Value for the People of Wisconsin

Our Strategic Priorities and Goals for 2007-09

• Amplify the Wisconsin Idea
• Promote Research
• Advance Learning
• Accelerate Internationalization
• Nurture Human Resources
• Enhance our resources and their strategic use

Building Value for the People of Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has an extraordinary history of benefit to the people of Wisconsin, rooted in the Wisconsin Idea, enunciated by Charles Van Hise in 1904, that he would “never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family in the state.” In this age, the influence of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is indeed global, but we remain tightly linked to the people of Wisconsin.

The benefits provided to the people of Wisconsin today have not changed dramatically since the days of Charles Van Hise: the education of our youth; the stimulation of economic development; the development of advances in health care; the creation of new knowledge through research; and the translation of the knowledge of our faculty and programs into applications that address the contemporary issues of Wisconsin and improve our quality of life. To maintain those benefits, we must cultivate the health and vitality of our educational programs, our research programs, our human resources, the internationalization of our perspectives and experiences, and the programs that translate our knowledge into the Wisconsin Idea.

As we share our mission and our strategic priorities, we are keenly aware that the University of Wisconsin-Madison once again stands at a point first described by President John Bascom in his farewell report to the Board of Regents in 1886:

“The University of Wisconsin is in that transitional period in which it is easy to go either backward or forward. If it loses faith in itself, faith in its object, wide knowledge, faith in the people to whom it is to give the best things in liberal measure, it will first hesitate, then retreat.”

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