The mission of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology is to be the preeminent public interdisciplinary research institute devoted to world-leading basic and applied research at the interface of the physical sciences, the life sciences and engineering. To fulfill that mission, the Beckman Institute has a long history of strategic planning in the form of stringent review processes. These reviews look at the mission, direction, and quality of the research programs, research support, publications, collaborative interactions of the faculty, and other indicators of world-leading research. The reviews are used to set the priorities and goals for the research and administrative programs for the years following the reviews. This strategic planning effort has built on the outcomes of those reviews to better articulate the current leading research areas and to establish goals for the research areas to achieve in the next five-year period.