A discussion paper, "Vision 2040", setting out the institution’s high-level strategy for the next two decades was published by the university late last year.
University strategy, analytics and reporting director David Thomson said the university would seek further input from students and mana whenua before it produced a draft Vision 2040 strategic document and finalised that document later this year.
Responsibility for determining the final form of the document rested with the university council, he said.
In a preamble to the discussion paper, outgoing University of Otago vice-chancellor Harlene Hayne said the university was taking a longer-term strategic focus than it had in its recent past.
The university’s work on its long-term strategy was disrupted by Covid-19, but the university would adapt to a post-pandemic world, Prof Hayne said.
"Some of those challenges are directly related to Covid, but others are pre-existing challenges that Covid-19 has either accelerated or brought to the fore," she said.
The pandemic also illustrated the role that Otago researchers could play in New Zealand’s response to the pandemic, she said.
The university would use four guiding principles in all its planning and operations: honouring the Treaty of Waitangi, operating sustainably, demonstrating social responsibility, and demonstrating institutional and individual academic freedom, the discussion paper said.
The university’s nine core values now included four that were created through a 2019 exercise branded "Shaping Our Culture, Together — He Waka Kotuia", it said.
