OICR Goals in Abbreviated Format 

The mission of the Institute can be summarized in the following goals, which will be realized through seminars, public forums, individual and joint publications, special events, and web-based initiatives enabling the rapid exchange of ideas: 

• Fostering creative research and innovation in the arts, sciences, and new humanities, exploring interfaces between them in an attempt to generate the conditions for the reunification of all branches of knowledge
   
• Building a place of national and international reputation where critical issues are being talked about, explored, and reconfigured
   
• Training students and researchers to think critically and creatively about the most pressing issues of our time across multiple domains and platforms
   
• Revitalizing journalism and documentary, devising new, or renewed, means of evaluating the credibility and integrity of information as well as establishing guidelines for disagreement and dissensus
   
• Exploring new interfaces between the textual and the visual, word and image—a major challenge in the digital age
   
• Understanding the role played by æsthetics in the signature phenomena of the 21st century and developing a powerful system of ethics capable of meeting the needs of the new century
   
• Bringing together leading figures to ignite necessary change regarding critical issues, whether food, climate change, homelessness, or new technologies
   
• Influencing and shaping contemporary discourse and public policy
   
• Uniting the long tradition of critical theory as socio-political critique and new forms of research emerging in the wake of digitalization—a potent combination of theory and practice
   
• Creating conditions for dialogue, sophisticated critique, and collaboration across boundaries, with no false consensus between the arts, humanities, and sciences
   
• Reevaluating and remonetizing a wide range of professions, including art, design, creative direction, creative research, social-justice advocacy, journalism, documentary, and teaching, among others
   
• Strengthening and expanding long-term partnerships with institutions across the City and country
   
• Expanding our Fall and Spring Colloquia and Residencies at Caldera as important fora for the discussion and exploration of new ideas outside the confines of the city and free of distractions
   
• Maintaining a rigorous and exciting OICR Lecture Series, bringing major figures to Portland for critical discussions
   
• Increasing international understanding and collaborations