Conceptually, it represents the highest research and teaching ambitions of the University of Chicago, sponsoring creative and innovative work in established academic disciplines in the arts and humanities and encouraging new projects that cross traditional disciplinary and departmental lines.

Materially, its physical space—a suite of offices and public rooms in the Regenstein Library—provides facilities where scholars and artists can do their work, and where that work can be tested and disseminated through discussions, debates, symposia, and public conferences.