Announcing Penn Forward

Today, we announce the launch of Penn Forward, a University-wide strategic planning initiative to shape Penn’s future.

Since its founding in 1740, the University of Pennsylvania has continuously innovated in education, scholarship, and service. That constant self-improvement is part of what makes Penn such a practical institution, able to address current challenges and emerging opportunities.

In the late 19th century, Penn responded to industrialization and professionalization by expanding into law, business, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and engineering—helping define the advanced research university. In the 1940s, we modernized our research infrastructure to meet the demands of war and global uncertainty. At the turn of this century, we invested in life sciences, community engagement, and expanded access.

Now, higher education faces new challenges and opportunities. These include a rapidly shifting funding environment, virtual learning, artificial intelligence, new research tools, rising skepticism about higher education’s value, and the potential to serve more learners across more stages of life and more parts of the world.

Penn Forward will advance the key pillars of In Principle and Practice to meet these extraordinary challenges and opportunities with Penn-specific approaches that will continue to shape the higher education landscape.

We will focus on six domains of bold, necessary action:

• Undergraduate Education and Innovation
  Ensure that our students are prepared for lives situated in complexity, equipped for personal fulfillment and societal contribution

• Graduate and Professional Training
  Prepare graduate and professional students for emerging and evolving fields and careers faster and less expensively, create more flexible pathways toward their goals, and support professional readiness across a wider spectrum of opportunities

• Research Strategy and Financing
  Secure new forms of support for our research ambitions and reimagine approaches to innovation, while protecting the freedom and creativity essential for progress

• Global Opportunity and New Markets
  Think across place and time—broadening Penn’s reach geographically and serving learners, alumni, and partners throughout their lives

• Access, Affordability, and Value
  Make Penn more welcoming, and feel more welcoming, to those who can benefit from what we have to offer; clarify the cost and value of a Penn education, and more powerfully communicate its purpose and impact

• Operational Transformation
  Redesign and simplify Penn’s business and financial operations, and position administrative staff for the opportunities ahead

Working groups in each area, comprising faculty, staff, and students, will begin their work this semester—some have already started. The charge to each working group is straightforward:

• Question our legacy assumptions

• Propose bold, implementable strategies

• Stay grounded in Penn’s values—and make those values visible in our structures and operations

The working groups will move with speed and focus, engaging perspectives from across the Penn community. Success means producing strategic clarity and executable choices that reflect Penn’s distinctive strengths and rise to the scale of our moment.

Success also means something harder to measure: fostering trust that the institution will act wisely, move with purpose, and adapt without losing the primacy of its values. We invite everyone in the Penn community to contribute ideas and questions. We’ll be sharing more in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, details can be found at upenn.edu/forward.

Today, we have a powerful opportunity and a deep obligation to shape Penn’s future and propel Penn forward.