Among the world’s leading universities, the University of Wisconsin–Madison is distinctive in its scale and breadth, the premium we place on our relevance to society, and our commitment to inclusivity in the broadest sense. The combination of these attributes fully equips us to address the complex problems facing the modern world.

The 2020–2024 strategic framework charts our path forward, building on the success of our past priorities and taking bold steps toward our vision of being a model public university in the 21st century. It preserves our core legacy of research, teaching, and public service and promotes a campus environment where full potential can be met.

The next five years present tremendous opportunities for UW–Madison—and for our impact on the state, nation, and world. We invite you to join us on this journey.

Our Vision

The University of Wisconsin–Madison will be a model public university in the 21st century, serving as a resource to the public, and working to enhance the quality of life in the state, the nation, and the world.

The university will remain a preeminent center for discovery, learning, and engagement by opening new forms of access to citizens from every background; creating a welcoming, empowered, and inclusive community; and preparing current and future generations to live satisfying, useful, and ethical lives. In partnership with the state and with colleagues around the world, the university’s faculty, staff, and students will identify and address many of the state’s and the world’s most urgent and complex problems.

Our Guiding Principles

AS AN INSTITUTION AND AS INDIVIDUALS, WE ARE GUIDED BY THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:

• We promote the highest standards of intellectual inquiry and rigor, in keeping with the university’s proven commitment to the “continual sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”
• We support learning for its own sake, throughout our lives, as a service to the greater good.
• We fiercely defend intellectual freedom and combine it with responsibility and civility so that all who work and live on our campus can question, criticize, teach, learn, create, and grow.
• We observe the highest ethical integrity in everything we do.
• We believe in the importance of working with and learning from those whose backgrounds and views differ from our own.
• We share the belief that neither origin nor economic background should be barriers to participation in the community.
• We are committed to being responsible stewards of our human, intellectual, cultural, financial, and environmental resources.
• We promote the application of research and teaching to issues of importance for the state, the nation, and the world, and we place learning and discovery in the service of political, economic, social, and cultural progress.