A center of excellence (COE or CoE ), also called excellence center, is a team, a shared facility or an entity that provides leadership,
best practice
A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing ...
s, research, support or training for a focus area.
Due to its broad usage and vague legal precedent, a "center of excellence" in one context may have completely different characteristics from another. The focus area might be a technology (e.g.
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
), a business concept (e.g.
BPM), a skill (e.g.
negotiation
Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties to reach the desired outcome regarding one or more issues of conflict. It is an interaction between entities who aspire to agree on matters of mutual interest. The agreement c ...
) or a broad area of study (e.g.
women's health
Women's health differs from that of men in many unique ways. Women's health is an example of population health, where health is defined by the World Health Organization as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not mer ...
). A center of excellence may also be aimed at revitalizing stalled initiatives.
The term may also refer to a network of institutions collaborating with each other to pursue excellence in a particular area.
(e.g. the
).
Organizations
Within an organization, a center of excellence may refer to a group of people, a department or a shared facility. It may also be known as a competency center, or as a capability center, or as an excellence center. Stephen Jenner and Craig Kilford, in ''Management of Portfolios'', mention COE as a coordinating function which ensures that change initiatives are delivered consistently and well, through standard processes and competent staff. In technology companies, the center of excellence concept is often associated with new software tools, technologies or associated business concepts such as
service-oriented architecture
In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provided ...
or
business intelligence
Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, online analytical pr ...
.
Academia
In academic institutions, a center of excellence often refers to a team with a clear focus on a particular area of research; such a center may bring together faculty members from different disciplines and provide shared facilities.
Australia
In Australia, the
Australian Research Council
The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...
(ARC) funds a competitive grant program for centres of excellence which link a number of institutions within the country and internationally in a specific field of research.
New centres are funded every three years and each run for seven years.
2020-2027:
*
ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics
* ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science
*
ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture
*
ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems
2017-2024:
* ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions
*
ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems
* ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science
*
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery
* ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology
2014-2021:
* ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course
* ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology
* ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrated Coral Reef Studies
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers of Big Data, Big Models, New Insights
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics
* ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis
2011-2018
*
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics
*
ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
* ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid System
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Geotechnical Science and Engineering
*
ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions
The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE) is an Australian research centre that undertakes research in the history of emotions. The Centre was established in 2011 with core funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC ...
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Tera-Scale
* ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Wall Biology
*
ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology
* ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems
2004/5-2013
*
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI)
*
ARC Centre for Complex Systems
Philippines
In the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, a center of excellence (COE) is a certification given by the
Commission on Higher Education to departments within a higher education institution (e.g. a college within a university) which "continuously demonstrates excellent performance in the areas of instruction, research and publication, extension and linkages and institutional qualifications". Candidates for this certification are referred as centers of development (CODs) by the education body.
Russia
In Russia, the Center of Excellence status (in Russian it is used notion ''Leading scientific school'') is granted by the Council for Grants of the President of the Russian Federation since 1996. To obtain the COE status, a group of scientists, usually based on a department at a university or a laboratory at an academic institute, and its leader should have a high scientific reputation and should submit an application, which presents a plan of scientific and educational work for the period of two years, to the council. The council issues a special certificate of the COE status to the leader of the group.
United Kingdom
In the United KIngdom, schools and sixth forms specialising in an area of curriculum are known as
specialist schools. These schools are recognised as centres of excellence in their specialist subject areas.
Schools that attained
Beacon status were also recognised as centres of excellence, however this status has been discontinued.
Business
Walmart is designating certain employee healthcare venues as Centers of Excellence. In 2013, several regions of the country (Dallas-Fort Worth; Northern Arkansas; Orlando, FL) Walmart is offering employees free treatment when they use the designated Centers of Excellence. Treatments are administered to covered employees, who travel to the Centers, along with a caregiver, for a course of treatment at the center. Depending on the budgetary outcome, Walmart will be sharing its operational results with other employers, as a method of controlling its healthcare costs.
Ford Motor Company has announced a battery center of excellence, meant to centralize a cross-functional team to accelerate the development of battery and battery cell technology. Electrical batteries would then serve as the basis for all-electric vehicles. The Center of Excellence is called Ford Ion Park.
Northrop Grumman has invested in its Manned Aircraft Design Center of Excellence in Melbourne, Florida. This investment uses modeling and simulation tools at the Center of Excellence which predict the performance of its test-bed aircraft, as a method for reducing risk during the process of developing the B-21.
Huntington Ingalls Industries is building out an Unmanned Systems Center of Excellence, which is working on Boeing's project for the Navy's Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle.
Similarly Alliant Techsystems, Otis Elevator, Alcoa, Greatbatch, and GE have all used Centers of Excellence as organizational mechanisms to gain
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables a ...
, when discovering and sharing efficiencies of operation.
Healthcare
In the
healthcare sector, the term often refers to a center that provides sufficient and easily accessible medical services to patients.
In the British
NHS, the term is almost always used
sarcastically
Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...
, following its popularisation by Dr Peter Gooderham on the Doctors.net.uk fora. It can often be heard being used to describe
tertiary centres by staff working in district general hospitals.
Defence
NATO
Europe
In the European defense community, the
European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats is a response to
hybrid warfare
Hybrid warfare is a theory of military strategy, first proposed by Frank Hoffman, which employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyberwarfare
with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomac ...
on its periphery; the COE seeks to inform, and also protect its non-
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
components, as well as its non-
PESCO
The Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is the part of the European Union's (EU) security and defence policy (CSDP) in which 25 of the 27 national armed forces pursue structural integration (the exceptions being Denmark and Malta). Based on ...
members. The US Department of Defense (DoD) intends to use CoEs that focus on key technologies, such as drones, and commercial satellite imagery.
[Jaspreet Gil]
( DoD 'hedge strategy' could bring 'element of surprise' to future conflict: Brown
/ref>
United States Army
The Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
maintains a Center of Excellence (CoE) at major training installations and other locations:
# Acquisition COE - Huntsville, Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = " Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
# Aviation COE - Fort Rucker
Fort Rucker is a U.S. Army post located primarily in Dale County, Alabama, United States. It was named for a Civil War officer, Confederate General Edmund Rucker. The post is the primary flight training installation for U.S. Army Aviators an ...
, Alabama
# Cyber COE - Fort Gordon
Fort Gordon, formerly known as Camp Gordon, is a United States Army installation established in October 1941. It is the current home of the United States Army Signal Corps, United States Army Cyber Command, and the Cyber Center of Excellence. ...
, Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to t ...
# Fires COE - Fort Sill
Fort Sill is a United States Army post north of Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles (136.8 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. It covers almost .
The fort was first built during the Indian Wars. It is designated as a National Historic Landma ...
, Oklahoma
# Human Resource COE - Fort Knox
Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States' official gold r ...
, Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virgini ...
# Initial Military Training COE - Fort Eustis
Fort Eustis is a United States Army installation in Newport News, Virginia. In 2010, it was combined with nearby Langley Air Force Base to form Joint Base Langley–Eustis.
The post is the home to the United States Army Training and Doctrine ...
, Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
# Intelligence COE - Fort Huachuca
Fort Huachuca is a United States Army installation, established on 3 March 1877 as Camp Huachuca. The garrison is now under the command of the United States Army Installation Management Command. It is in Cochise County in southeast Arizona, a ...
, Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States. It is the list of U.S. states and territories by area, 6th largest and the list of U.S. states and territories by population, 14 ...
# Maneuver COE - Fort Benning, Georgia
# Maneuver Support COE Fort Leonard Wood
Fort Leonard Wood is a U.S. Army training installation located in the Missouri Ozarks. The main gate is located on the southern boundary of The City of St. Robert. The post was created in December 1940 and named in honor of General Leonard ...
, Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
# Medical COE - Joint Base San Antonio
Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA) is a United States military facility located in San Antonio, Texas, USA. The facility is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force 502d Air Base Wing, Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The win ...
(JBSA), Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
# Mission Command COE - Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth () is a United States Army installation located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, in the city of Leavenworth. Built in 1827, it is the second oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C., and the oldest perman ...
, Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
# NCO Leadership COE - Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Named in honor of LTC William Bliss (1815–1853), a mathematics professor who was the son-in-law of President Zachary Taylor, Ft. Bliss h ...
, Texas
# Space and Missile Defense CoE - Peterson Space Force Base
Peterson Space Force Base, previously Peterson Air Force Base, Peterson Field, and Army Air Base, Colorado Springs, is a U.S. Space Force Base that shares an airfield with the adjacent Colorado Springs Municipal Airport and is home to the Nor ...
, Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
# Special Operations COE - Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within C ...
, North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...
# Sustainment COE - Fort Lee, Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
TRADOC oversees ten of these Centers of Excellence, each focused on a separate area of expertise within the Army. These centers train over 500,000 Soldiers and service members each year.TRADOC home page
accessdate=2019-05-26
See also
*
Homeland Security Centers of Excellence
Homeland Security Centers of Excellence (HS-Centers) are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. These Centers develop technology and training for police and domestic military units. The Centers were created under the Homeland Secur ...
*
Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance,
U.S. Pacific Command
*
*
Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units
*
European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats
Institute of Air Navigation Services (IANS) – ATM training and e-learning*
Cross-functional team (CFT)
References
{{Authority control
Organizational structure
Medical and health organizations
Scientific organizations
Scientific terminology