Strategic Planning at NSF STCERSP

    There are many approaches to strategic planning. An excellent summary of strategic planning can be found in the best practices section of the Engineering Research Center website.  Our planning process follows a similar outline.  What we describe here is an approach that we believe will work for us in planning our research.  Planning is in progress and will be broadened to include the entire CERSP later this year.  Other links to websites helpful for strategic planning are listed at the end of this section.

    The main points of strategic planning are to establish direction and provide alignment.  The direction that the Center takes over time is the result of hundreds of individual decisions made by researchers.  Thus it’s important that we establish the right direction with our strategic plan, that everyone understands and commits to the plan and makes decisions aligned with it. 

    Strategic planning is a cascade process.  Each step is linked to the preceding one, with shorter range and greater detail.  The plan began with a state-of-the-art analysis, which was done for the original project proposal to NSF.  We derive the barriers which we must overcome in order to reach our vision by examining the differences between the future to which we aspire and today’s world.  The need for “green” chemical processes was identified, leading to a vision reflecting the difference we hope to make. 

    Our vision is a brief and, we hope, compelling statement of the world we seek to create.  A “revolution in green chemistry” captures the visionary part of this statement.  A revolution involves risk and we intend to undertake the type of high-risk research that industry typically avoids.  The phrase “cutting-edge integrated physical science/engineering, social science and education programs” reflects both the fundamental nature of our research and our commitment to collaboration. “Enable” describes our strategic intent to provide broad new technology underlying commercialization. 

The statement of mission describes our role in overcoming barriers to achieve our vision.

    "Identify and enable sustainable processes and products” means that we plan for and target our fundamental, cutting-edge science to have practical application. “Sustainable” implies environmentally benign, energy efficient and economically competitive.  “CO₂-related technology” describes the focus of our cutting edge science and engineering.  The second part of our mission “enable our science to have broad societal benefit by understanding social processes that foster collaboration and innovation in research, career training and outreach activities” reflects our belief that technology alone is insufficient to achieve a revolution.  People make it happen.

  The strategic planning process, as we practice it, is inclusive, iterative and ongoing.  We want all participants in the Center to contribute to the plan and accept it as their own.  We have invited input and comment at several points from CERSP participants as well as our External Advisory Board and the Kenan Center for Utilization of Carbon Dioxide in Manufacturing.  Strategic planning is iterative and ongoing in that we expect to update plans periodically.  The vision is likely to be changed no more than once or twice during the coming years.  On the other hand, tactical plans, such as technical project team objectives, will be updated every couple of years and individual objectives at least annually.  Moreover, we intend to revisit our strategic plans semiannually to assure that they are still appropriate and to review individual programs annually to assure alignment.

     For more information about strategic planning you might check out the following websites:

     Two excellent plans can be found at