This message was sent to all UW personnel on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026.
Over the past year, faculty, staff, students and stakeholders from across our University have contributed to an important effort: defining where – and how – the University of Washington can make the greatest impact in the years ahead.
Thanks to your collective effort, I am pleased to announce that today, we are releasing the UW’s final, written version of the strategic plan – a shared framework for advancing and strengthening our mission of serving the public good over the next five years.
As I said in my October State of the University address, this plan is intended to create a durable and consistent way to make choices, align resources, measure progress and build capacity in service of our three-part mission: student success, discovery and innovation for the public good, and engagement that supports healthy, thriving communities. As faculty, academic personnel and staff, each of us contributes to this mission in various ways, and the purpose of this plan is to help us be even more effective and impactful in what we can accomplish.
The plan is organized around four pillars:
- Delivering high-quality, debt-free education that unlocks opportunity
- Engaging in radical collaborations for breakthroughs and public benefit
- Strengthening healthier communities where everyone can thrive
- Stewarding and growing the people and resources that support our mission and strategic initiatives
Importantly, the strategic plan is about ensuring alignment, not uniformity. The four pillars create spaces for all of us to do our best work by identifying our highest-impact priorities. But it does not – and could not – speak to everything our vast institution does or require every unit to work in the same way. Our schools, colleges, campuses and administrative units have distinct missions, strengths and responsibilities. The determination for how each of them can best advance the plan’s vision and pillars will happen at the local level, and Provost Tricia Serio has asked our unit leaders to complete the work of review and alignment with the strategic plan by the end of this calendar year.
For many units, this work may involve refinement rather than starting over. Existing plans should be reviewed and updated where appropriate to strengthen their alignment with the University’s shared priorities.
The plan is a tool to focus our attention on what matters most – areas where coordinated efforts can have the greatest impact over the next five years. It is a guide for action, not a substitute for the creativity, judgment, values and leadership that every part of the University brings to its work.
With the release of the plan, we can now begin the work of implementation. Along the way, we will continue to measure progress, learn from experience and improve our approach throughout the life of the plan. Our success will depend, as it always has, on your contributions across the UW – in classrooms and laboratories, clinics and hospitals, libraries and studios, offices and communities throughout Washington and beyond.
Thank you to everyone who helped shape this plan and to all who will help bring it to life. I look forward to working with you as we meet this moment and prepare the University of Washington for what comes next.