A center of excellence is a team, a shared facility or an entity that provides leadership, best practices, research, support and/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, a business concept, a skill or a broad area of study. 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..
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 a capability 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 or business intelligence. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats is a response to hybrid warfare.
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 Centres of Excellence link a number of institutions with a country and internationally in a specific field of research, funded by government grants.
In the Philippines, a center of excellence is a certification given by the Commission on Higher Education to departments within a higher education institution 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 by the education body.
Russia
In Russia, the Center of Excellence status is granted by the Council for Grants of the President of the Russian Federation. 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, the Council. The Council issues a special certificate of the CoE status to the leader of the group.
Healthcare
In the healthcare sector, the term often refers to a center that provides sufficient and easily accessible medical services to patients.
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.
