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Strategic Plan

UK-PURPOSE

Plan for Unprecedented Research, Purposeful and Optimal Service and Education

The north star that guides everything we do at the University of Kentucky must be to advance Kentucky — from its economy to its health and from its culture to its levels of educational attainment so critical to progress.

In 2021, the UK Board of Trustees approved a strategic plan that serves as a roadmap for our progress together. It clearly articulates for our campus — and all those who invest in and care about this special place — how we are working to advance the Commonwealth.

These principles serve as the foundation of how UK will operationalize honoring its mission as a land-grant institution in the 21st century.

Upon its adoption in 2021, the strategic plan anticipated going through changes as the primary topic surrounded the COVID-19 response. As such, the strategic plan is currently being reworked to better reflect and respond to current opportunities and considerations. Updates will be forthcoming. In the interim individual pages like Ensuring Greater Trust, Transparency and Accountability will be updated.

Our Five Principles to Advance Kentucky

Putting Students First

They are why we are here. Whether it is a maintaining a modern curriculum that prepares our students for success, providing appropriate support for graduate students or ensuring that doctoral students start and complete their programs successfully, we must put students first.

87.3% Preliminary Retention

STUDENTS CHASING THEIR DREAMS

Taking Care of Our People

Our people are both those who comprise this special community and those who we serve as we aspire to advance Kentucky through education, research, service and care. That has always been our mission and in recent years we’ve expanded that idea to serve and provide health care to every corner of the state, while investing more in the compensation and support of our community.

No. 1 ranked Hospital in Ky for the ninth year in a row

CARING FOR KENTUCKY

Inspiring Ingenuity

Higher education is the vehicle to inspire ingenuity. We must be intentional about creating effective pathways from campus into public venues for our research, teaching, innovation and creative work. To inspire ingenuity, using available resources, we must be strategic, innovative and use one of our strongest UK attributes — the ability to work collaboratively to address complex challenges.

$925M in KY economic activity generated by UK researchers

RESEARCH LEADING THE WAY

Ensuring Greater Trust, Transparency and Accountability

As Kentucky’s land-grant and flagship university, we have a heightened responsibility to ensure trust — as a core value of our community — and to increase accountability and transparency for everyone who cares about, and invests in, this place.

1,325 UKNow articles written in FY23-24

SHARING WHAT WE MAKE POSSIBLE

Bringing Together Many People, One Community

The ideal of advancing the citizenry through education, hard work and innovation remains at the core, yet global and societal changes affect people in even the most rural parts of the state. With one of the most vibrant workforces and student bodies in the state, UK provides a microcosm of how a group of many people can make one strong community.

65,951 faculty and staff

A WILDLY POWERFUL COMMUNITY

Read the past strategic plan

UK-PURPOSE

Plan for Unprecedented Research, Purposeful and Optimal Service and Education

The north star that guides everything we do at the University of Kentucky must be to advance Kentucky — from its economy to its health and from its culture to its levels of educational attainment so critical to progress.

In 2021, the UK Board of Trustees approved a strategic plan that serves as a roadmap for our progress together. It clearly articulates for our campus — and all those who invest in and care about this special place — how we are working to advance the Commonwealth.

These principles serve as the foundation of how UK will operationalize honoring its mission as a land-grant institution in the 21st century.

Email	pres@uky.edu
Phone	859-257-1701
Fax	859-257-1760