See How We Are Advancing Missouri
TO ADVANCE IS TO MOVE FORWARD, IN A PURPOSEFUL AND MEANINGFUL WAY.
What does it mean to advance a state?
Across the University of Missouri System’s four campuses and health care enterprise, it means educating nearly half of all undergraduates at public four-year institutions in the state as well as the majority of graduate students and professional school students.
It means preparing Missourians to become active, involved and responsible citizens.
It means serving our state through quality health care, University Extension and volunteerism.
It means creating and investing in a culture of innovation and providing infrastructure to spur new jobs, entrepreneurial behavior and economic growth.
In short, Advancing Missouri is central to the mission of the University of Missouri System.
Please hover over any of the tabs below to learn how the UM System is Advancing Missouri.
Education
Outstanding education is the hallmark of the UM System’s teaching mission to discover, disseminate, preserve and apply knowledge.
Our four campuses are home to: the world’s first journalism school; one of the world’s top entrepreneurial programs; Popular Science’s No. 1 college lab; and the nation’s largest and most diverse biology conservation program.*
Since 2001, our annual enrollment has grown by more than 18,500 students—to more than 75,000 students total—the equivalent of adding another campus.
Our rigorous entrance standards mean we’re educating some of the top students in the state. The 2011 freshman class at our four campuses boasts an average ACT score of 25.6, compared to a national average of 21.1.
Our flagship campus is one of only 34 public universities in the U.S. with membership in the esteemed Association of American Universities.
Diverse academic areas of study include 125 Ph.D. programs across our four campuses.
* MU’s Missouri School of Journalism, UMKC’s Henry W. Bloch School of Management; Missouri S&T’s Experimental Mine; UMSL’s Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center
Health
No other organization in this state—public or private—advances Missourians' health in as many ways as the UM System.
We have the state’s broadest range of health education opportunities, from occupational therapy to optometry; from pharmacy to dentistry; and from nuclear medicine to public health.
Our vast network of hospitals, clinics and affiliates provides care to people in every Missouri county. Additionally, the Missouri Telehealth Network connects patients in rural and remote areas with expert care through video conferencing technologies.
More Missouri doctors receive their medical degree from our medical schools than any other university, and our nursing alumni are in every county across the state.
Our medical research centers and clinical partners provide patients with access to clinical trials, highly specialized care, free health screenings, community clinics and mobile health care units.
We provided $32.8 million in uncompensated and charity care in FY2012.
Economy
The UM System provides a tremendous return on investment to the state by supporting job creation, business consulting and taking faculty innovations to the market.
Our network of 10 research parks and incubators, and dozens of small business and technology development centers, provides infrastructure to grow new companies.
We are investing in moving faculty innovations to the marketplace. Last year, the university was issued 34 U.S. patients and filed 69 new U.S. patent applications; created eight startup businesses based on UM innovations; and generated $6.8 million in licensing income.
University Extension helped create or retain more than 3,600 jobs through free business consulting in the last fiscal year.
We are a key player in the Midwest’s “Bio-Innovation Belt” of plant and animal sciences research and expertise.
Faculty, staff and students contribute to the state’s vibrant arts culture, which makes our state a great place to live and work.
Research
Researchers on our four campuses focus on collaborative, cutting-edge research to solve complex problems.
The UM System performs 95% of all of the research conducted by public universities in Missouri.
Our campuses have dozens of research centers and institutes, including those that focus on the life sciences, ocular diseases, public policy and materials engineering.
The University of Missouri’s four campuses are among the top 30 percent of universities when it comes to licensing revenue generated from research-developed intellectual property, according to a national survey that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education.*
We’re the only university system in the country to have three National Institutes of Health centers in comparative medicine.
The Columbia campus has the most powerful nuclear research reactor on a university campus in America. It is also the nation’s No. 1 producer of radioisotopes for biomedical and medical applications.
*Based on a 2011 report from the Association of University Technology Managers