Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Illinois five-year strategic plan positions the next 150 years

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — “The Next 150,” a five-year strategic plan for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, aims to harness talents and resources to be a world-class university in every dimension of its mission.

Chancellor Robert Jones and Provost Andreas Cangellaris unveiled the plan details at an event at the Illini Union on Feb. 1. The full text of the plan is now online at strategicplan.illinois.edu.

Chancellor Robert Jones

“The Next 150 really lays out our collective vision and our bold goals for the future,” Jones said. “It’s the framework for how we will continue to serve the 21st-century needs of our community, our state, our nation and our world. We’ve been transforming the way the world lives, thinks and learns since 1867. This plan positions us to do that for the next 150 years.”

“The Next 150” includes a renewed commitment to the four goals detailed in the 2013-16 strategic plan:

  • Fostering scholarship, discovery and innovation
  • Providing transformative learning experiences
  • Making a significant and visible societal impact
  • Stewarding current resources and generating additional resources for strategic initiatives

Provost Andreas Cangellaris

“We create strategic plans in order to focus the unmatched research excellence and educational capacity of the university on the biggest challenges facing our society,” Cangellaris said. “This is a shared path forward toward the innovations and solutions that the world needs and that Illinois is uniquely positioned to deliver.”

More than a year of intensive planning led to a reimagining of each of these goals. From fall 2017 to spring 2018, eight goal-review sessions were held to create ideas for each of the four goals mentioned above, and 11 task forces brought additional focus to topics of critical importance: arts, data science, diversity, humanities, food security, globalization, health sciences, public engagement, social and behavioral sciences, energy and sustainability, and undergraduate education. Each task force was comprised of a group of experts across disciplines.

These groups submitted recommendations and reports at the beginning of 2018. To ensure collaboration and transparency, campus community members had an opportunity to give in-person feedback on the recommendations at the Strategic Planning Town Hall event and also online.

All of the recommendations and feedback were considered and reviewed by the provost’s office and the leadership committee in 2018. Plan details were finalized at the end of the year, in order to release the report in the beginning of 2019.

“The ‘Next 150’ sets us on a course to redefine the role of public higher education in the 21st century and to stand out as agents for the democratization of education and innovation through emphasis on diversity, access, entrepreneurship and public engagement,” Cangellaris said.

Campus leadership also recently debuted the “Stories of Impact” project, a collection of stories that show successes stemming from the 2013-16 strategic plan. In the future, that website will be updated yearly with stories that show the impact of “The Next 150.”

Editor’s note: For additional information, contact Robin Kaler, associate chancellor for public affairs, 217-333-5010, rkaler@illinois.edu

Read Next

Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Nishant Garg, center, is joined by fellow researchers, from left: Yujia Min, Hossein Kabir, Nishant Garg, center, Chirayu Kothari and M. Farjad Iqbal, front right. In front are examples of clay samples dissolved at different concentrations in a NaOH solution. The team invented a new test that can predict the performance of cementitious materials in mere 5 minutes. This is in contrast to the standard ASTM tests, which take up to 28 days. This new advance enables real-time quality control at production plants of emerging, sustainable materials. Photo taken at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Photo by Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Researchers develop a five-minute quality test for sustainable cement industry materials

A new test developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign can predict the performance of a new type of cementitious construction material in five minutes — a significant improvement over the current industry standard method, which takes seven or more days to complete. This development is poised to advance the use of next-generation resources called supplementary cementitious materials — or SCMs — by speeding up the quality-check process before leaving the production floor.

Library and information sciences Photo of a row of looms in a textile mill.

Illinois information sciences professor, students develop National Park Service Books to Parks websites

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new National Park Service website explores the children’s book “Lyddie” as part of the Books to Parks series that connects children’s books to park service sites. Sara Schwebel, the director of the Center for Children’s Books at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information Sciences, worked with the National Park […]

Health and medicine Photo of Dr. Lowe standing in front of a cattle feed lot on the U. of I. campus.

What makes the bird flu virus so unusual?

The H5N1 virus attacks specific body systems in each species and behaves very differently in each depending on which body systems are involved, causing widespread death in some animals while barely affecting others, says University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign veterinary clinical medicine professor Dr. Jim Lowe. He spoke with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010