At Wake Forest University, a powerful convergence of initiatives and resources is fueling remarkable momentum in neuroscience. Guided by our Strategic Framework, we’re building a thriving “community of inquiry” where innovative research in neuroscience and society is one of five pillars of academic excellence. This vision is supported by an array of interdisciplinary programs, research facilities, and collaborative spaces designed to nurture inquiry, foster leadership, and drive societal impact.
From the Program for Leadership and Character to the dynamic WakerSpace and Wake Downtown, these resources provide a foundation for creativity, ethical scholarship, and groundbreaking discovery. Additionally, partnerships like Innovation Quarter and The Pearl in Charlotte connect Wake Forest’s strengths with broader communities, accelerating advances that shape the future of science, healthcare, and technology. Explore the links below to see how these resources are propelling Wake Forest to the forefront of neuroscience and beyond.
Framing Our Future:
Wake Forest’s Strategic Framework
Framing our Future is our collective vision, formed through conversations with more than one thousand faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends from summer 2022 through summer 2023. In undertaking this unprecedented visioning exercise by the full Wake Forest community, the university affirmed its values and set its aspirations for its third century.
Through this process, three thematic goals emerged that affirm Wake Forest’s unique place within the landscape of higher education and focus our future investment and exploration.
- Wake Forest will be a lifelong learning community that calls all to develop their full potential to contribute in a diverse and complex world.
- Wake Forest will foster a community of inquiry through research, scholarship and creative work that transcends boundaries to address the challenges facing humanity and our world.
- Wake Forest will build meaningful, mutual partnerships to honor our commitment to the well-being of our local, regional and global communities.
Each of the thematic goals provides inspiration for who we will become, expressed as strategic aims, to be applied to all parts of the University and to grow over time as new ideas and initiatives are identified.
Thematic Goal 2: Community of Inquiry
We will foster a community of inquiry through research, scholarship and creative work that transcends boundaries to address the challenges facing humanity and our world.
The culture within great universities – those that are steeped in independence of thought and academic freedom – provides a community in which lines of inquiry can be pursued unfettered. Universities are the primary engines for generating the knowledge needed to tackle the complex problems that vex society.
Strategic Aim 2.2: Strengthen existing and build new signature areas of excellence in research, scholarship and creative work that cross academic and institutional boundaries to address issues of importance to humanity with broad societal impact, positioning Wake Forest as a thought leader in important national and international dialogues.
Action: Catalyze and disseminate research, scholarship and creative work in established or emergent areas of interdisciplinary and/or University distinction that crosses barriers and empowers new collaborations of importance to humanity. Articulate a specific rubric and process for defining areas of distinction
Wake Forest has considerable expertise across the institution in the interconnectedness of brain health and the workings of the mind, including teacher-scholars in our law school, divinity school and medical school (including the Maya Angelou Center for Health); theatre and dance, biology and psychology programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School; our cross-school Bioethics program, and in our neuroscience clinical and basic science departments in health sciences, where neurological, neuropsychiatric, neurodegenerative and behavioral research, neuro-ethics and advanced tools such as super-resolution imaging, computational modeling and machine learning are helping transform Wake Forest into a national neuroscience hub.
In addition to the Neuroscience & Society Initiative, four additional initiatives will be the initial focus of the framework. All of these initiatives will interact synergistically to accelerate innovation and impact on our students and society.
Health, Medicine and Humanity
Wake Forest is uniquely situated to support health, medicine and humanity. It is a collaborative, intellectual and community-based space for addressing ethical, social and policy issues of importance for biotechnology, health care, biomedical research, public health and health communication. Key areas of excellence at Wake Forest include the Bioethics Center; the Humanities Institute; the health and exercise science, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, counseling, biostatistics, epidemiology and public health sciences departments and divisions; the bioethics, humanity and medicine minor, and multiple programs, including the COMPASS Initiative and medical-legal partnerships like the Veterans Legal Clinic.
Environment and Sustainability
Faculty in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences programs in environment and sustainability, biology, physics, statistics, engineering, chemistry, politics and international affairs, history, religious studies and others; the Center for Functional Materials (CFM); and faculty in the Schools of Divinity, Law, Business and Medicine have collective expertise in specific areas of impact. Our world-renowned Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CEES) effects change by taking knowledge and technology from the lab to society, linking basic research and the tools — enterprise, policy, education, marketing, the arts — that turns ideas into action.
Leadership, Character and Integrity
Wake Forest has developed significant research excellence in the analysis and promotion of character and ethical behavior through multiple programs including the internationally renowned Leadership and Character Program, the Allegacy Center for Leadership and Character in the School of Business, vocational formation research in the School of Divinity and the award-winning research of a cluster of faculty in the philosophy and psychology departments on The Honesty Project, and in the work of the Schools of Law and Medicine.
Emerging and Future Technologies
Emerging technologies have yet to be fully realized, but they have the capacity to transform or disrupt established practices and ways of doing things, raising new questions about how we live, how we learn, how we work and even what it means to be human. This manifests in our academic programs in engineering and business and data analytics; our expertise in artificial intelligence, patent practice and blockchain research; and our Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, Computer Science Network Security Projects, Center for Functional Materials and Center for Analytics.
Program for Leadership and Character
The Program for Leadership and Character consists of faculty and staff from a diverse group of disciplines and backgrounds who study and assess leadership and character, as well as students who take on the important and challenging work of developing their leadership and character.
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP)
Wake Forest University’s Office of Research and Sponsored Programs supports the Vice Provost for Research, Scholarly Inquiry and Creative Activity in building research programs of nationally recognized excellence. They assist Reynolda Campus faculty in their pursuit and management of sponsored activities; work to assure ethical research achievement, especially involving human subjects, in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations; protect the university’s interests; and acknowledge and publicize faculty distinction.
WakerSpace
WakerSpace is Wake Forest University’s collaborative makerspace, dedicated to fostering creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. Open to students, faculty, and staff, it provides a hands-on environment enriched with tools like 3D printers, laser cutters, woodworking equipment, and even a podcast studio. Here, formal and informal learning merge as the Wake Forest community engages in projects that inspire ingenuity and curiosity, embodying the University’s spirit of Pro Humanitate and liberal arts tradition.
Wake Downtown
Wake Downtown is the locus of Wake Forest University’s three new undergraduate academic programs in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (BMB), Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery, and Engineering.
In addition to the three anchor programs, Wake Downtown also serves as an interdisciplinary hub, hosting courses from academic departments in the arts and humanities that benefit from the building’s innovative teaching spaces and urban setting.
Innovation Quarter
Home to Wake Downtown, Innovation Quarter is one of the leading innovation districts in the US. It creates an ecosystem where ideas can grow, collaborations can emerge, and everyone can thrive. From startups to sole proprietors to emerging and established businesses, companies in the Innovation Quarter create a vital entrepreneurial community that contributes to national innovation culture and serves the people who live, work, learn and play in and around this vibrant district.
The Pearl: Charlotte’s Innovation District
Developed in partnership between Atrium Health and Wexford Science & Technology, The Pearl leverages the partners’ experience and forward-thinking approach to embrace new ideas, research and technologies that will advance healthcare solutions and welcome people from all walks of life within our community.
Having broken ground in Q1 2023, The Pearl will be a multi-phased, mixed-use development featuring office, lab, retail, residential, including affordable housing, community gathering and academic spaces. The first phase of the District includes Charlotte’s first four-year medical school, Wake Forest University School of Medicine Charlotte.