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Strategy 2025 Documents

Vision

To improve the lives of all Utahns and to advance a new national higher education model for delivering societal impact.

Guiding Statement

The University of Utah drives unsurpassed societal impact by preparing students from diverse backgrounds to be leaders and global citizens who strengthen our society and democracy; generating and sharing new knowledge, discoveries, and innovations that supercharge our economy and improve lives locally, nationally, and globally; and engaging local, national, and global communities to promote education, health, and quality of life.

2030 GOALS

  • Advance educational opportunity by serving 40,000 students
  • Fuel the economy with a highly skilled workforce by achieving 80% graduation rates and 90% job placement at graduation
  • Champion new discovery by reaching $1 billion in research funding
  • Pioneer new models of delivering societal impact by improving the lives of all 3.5 million Utahns
  • Achieve unsurpassed societal impact by becoming a top 10 world-class public institution for contributions to our community

Driving Force: Serving a Changing State

Utah’s evolving needs act as the driving force behind our strategy. In the coming years, Utah will see significant demographic and economic shifts that will have dramatic implications for our communities, state, and country. As Utah’s leading research institution and trusted health care provider, the University of Utah will play a pivotal role in guiding our state through these transformations.

How the state is changing:

  • Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the U.S. and is now considered mid-sized for the first time in its history.
  • Utah’s robust economy, consistently ranked among the strongest in the nation, continues to grow.
  • Utah is becoming more multicultural. Nearly one in four Utahns is a racial or ethnic minority, and this ratio is projected to rise to one in three within two decades.
  • Utah residents are aging and birth rates are dropping. Utah’s over-65 population is projected to rise from one in 10 today to one in five by 2050.

How we plan to lead through change:

  • Grow our student body, creating greater access to the state’s most prestigious and research-intensive public university, while providing employers with a talented workforce.
  • Adapt the ways we teach to ensure successful educational outcomes and effective learning for an increasingly diverse student population.
  • Expand our University of Utah Health systems significantly and adapt to the complex needs of aging residents.
  • Leverage our research capacities to address environmental and societal challenges such as air quality, water scarcity, affordable housing, and mental health.
  • Pioneer solutions and create models to transfer discoveries to the marketplace and the world.

Our collaborative approach:

  • We will help guide our state through the dynamic times ahead and approach this work with both optimism and determination.
  • We seek to foster interdisciplinary collaborations to facilitate leading-edge discoveries and innovation.
  • We plan to partner with the Utah System of Higher Education and other institutions to provide the state a diverse portfolio of higher education focused on meeting Utah’s evolving needs.
  • We will work with local communities across the state, government agencies, and private-sector partners to galvanize resources to promote shared prosperity at home, nationally, and abroad.

 

The Strategic Planning Process

The planning phase will take place throughout 2024 and will align with other planning efforts. This includes campus planning, which will adapt our physical campus to serve the university’s future needs, and U of U Health Strategic Planning, which will ensure the growth and vitality of our robust health system statewide.

Phases:

  1. Diagnostics (spring 2024)
  2. Ideation (spring and summer 2024)
  3. Detailed planning (fall 2024)

Objectives:

  • Involve our entire university community in shaping a plan that articulates how we will achieve our vision; hold multiple collaborative forums (such as town hall sessions, surveys, and focus groups) to invite insights and ideas
  • Explore themes that will influence our success and identify how we will address specific strategic imperatives identified through research, community engagement, and other planning activities
  • Develop an implementation plan that identifies resources critical to success and mechanisms to gauge our progress toward achieving our vision over time 

Key themes to evaluate:

  • The undergraduate and graduate student experiences
  • Shared and core institutional services necessary for operational excellence
  • Physical campus environment
  • Research productivity and innovation
  • Faculty, staff, and leadership development
  • Community engagement
  • Wellness and resilience of our students, faculty, staff, and leaders

Strategic imperatives:

  • Provide an unrivaled college experience with living-learning environments and opportunities for students to be inspired, research, serve and find a unique pathway to success
  • Grow the physical footprint of our campus to ensure we can provide the highest quality and access to patient care, educate a larger student body, and empower our faculty to drive innovation
  • Prioritize operational excellence to maximize our resources and ensure responsible growth
  • Support researchers and entrepreneurs to seek answers to pressing societal issues
  • Customize the student experience by addressing issues such as student retention, time to graduation, belonging, curriculum gaps, and targeted faculty development
  • Generate entrepreneurial revenue through innovation and commercialization

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