Mahere rautaki

Strategic plan

Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington will be a world-leading capital city university and one of the great global-civic universities.

Vice-Chancellor’s introduction

"Our vision is to be a world-leading capital city university and one of the great global–civic universities. It is time to confidently set about making this happen."
Grant Guilford

The 2020 Strategic Plan builds on the accomplishments of the previous Strategic Plan that revitalised the ‘civic university’ tradition on which our university was founded. This tradition was reinvigorated with the global outlook of a modern capital city and the Strategic Plan redefined the local–civic university as the global–civic university. In so doing, we highlighted our commitment to civil society and global citizenship, and affirmed our intent to prepare critically and culturally informed, globally confident, civic-minded graduates.

This international perspective underpins and reinforces our commitment to our location—Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the wider Asia–Pacific region.¹ This is our tūrangawaewae—the place in which we stand—a place that defines our institutional identity and our future. We bridge the local and the global by ensuring that communities throughout this region benefit from our research and teaching excellence.

The 2020 Strategic Plan adapts to the challenging strategic context of the University, yet it is unreservedly ambitious. Our ambition is in keeping with the world-class quality of our institution and our determination to make a prominent contribution to addressing the major challenges that face our nation and our world.

The Plan commits us to uphold a set of institutional values and enunciates our vision and our purpose in society. It draws on our bicultural heritage and a constitutional framework enriched by Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Plan comprises strategies that span the quality of our research, teaching, and student experience. It focuses on inclusivity, on our engagement with communities, on our place in the Asia–Pacific, and it promotes actions that will transform the way we work.

The development of this Plan has required us to pause to consider what defines our university and its future. We are a global–civic university with our marae at our heart. This essence is further defined by our heritage and our tūrangawaewae, and manifests in our current position as Aotearoa New Zealand’s globally ranked capital city university.

Our vision is to be a world-leading capital city university and one of the great global–civic universities. It is time to confidently set about making this happen.

Professor Grant Guilford

Vice-Chancellor

¹ Defined for these purposes as Australasia, Asia, Oceania and the Pacific Rim, including the Americas, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.