About the Plan

UC San Diego’s first-ever Strategic Plan was initiated by UC San Diego’s eighth chancellor, Pradeep K. Khosla. Produced in 2014, it was developed through an inclusive bottom-up process that engaged more than 10,000 campus and community members and continues on as a living document.

The Strategic Plan established our five transformational goals and four grand research themes. It articulates our shared values, mission, and vision.

For details, read the full Strategic Plan or the Executive Summary.

Five Transformational Goals

Student Experience

Delivering an educational and overall experience that develops students who are capable of solving problems, leading, and innovating in a diverse and interconnected world.

Diversity and Access

Cultivating a diverse and inclusive university community that encourages respectful open dialogue, and challenges itself to take bold actions that will ensure learning is accessible and affordable for all.

Interdisciplinary Research

Nurturing and supporting a collaborative and interdisciplinary research culture that advances the frontiers of knowledge, shapes new fields, and disseminates discoveries that transform lives.

Community Enrichment

Supporting and promoting just and sustainable forms of economic development, shared prosperity, and social and cultural enrichment regionally and globally.

Supportive Infrastructure

Creating an agile, sustainable, and supportive infrastructure by ensuring a dedication to service, people, and financial stewardship.

Four Grand Research Themes

Understanding and Protecting the Planet

Explaining and effectively communicating environmental change, engineering economically viable solutions that will enhance the resilience of society, and recommending necessary policy changes and assessing their economic impact.

Enriching Human Life and Society

Improving health and alleviating ailments, and mitigating social disparities through education, resources, historic perspectives, technologies, and communication.

Exploring the Basis of Human Knowledge, Learning, and Creativity

Probing the structure and workings of the human brain to discover the relationship between the brain and behavior; the impact of genetics, history, and culture on how we think and act; the surging and ebbing movements of nations and populations; and the nature of knowledge itself.

Understanding Cultures and Addressing Disparities in Society

Revealing the full richness and breadth of human experience: build an appreciation of diverse cultures, perspectives, value systems, historical contexts, governance, and organizational structures; and foster the creation of new means of expression, analyses, and social organizations that will be important intellectual tools for the next generation.

Values

Collaborative and interdisciplinary activities lead to unsurpassed discoveries, technologies, cures, scholarship, and creative works that advance and enrich society.

Excellence in teaching, research, patient care, and a people- and service-oriented culture that supports learning, scholarly work, and public service are the norm.

Our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion enables faculty, students, and staff to excel and provides an opportunity for all to succeed.

Our entrepreneurial spirit leads to agility, risk-taking, and innovative approaches to solving problems and seizing opportunities. Public service, sustainability, integrity, and ethics are core principles guiding our activities.

Our Mission

UC San Diego will transform California and a diverse global society by educating, generating and disseminating knowledge and creative works, and engaging in public service.

Our Vision

We align our efforts to be a student-centered, research-focused, service-oriented public university.