Centres of Excellence (CoE) defining a common set of best practices and work standards. CoEs may be described as organisational environments that attempt for and achieve something in developing high standards of conduct in a field of research, innovation or learning. They are often highly attractive to research and development (R&D) investments and talent in their field. Therefore they possess the ability to absorb and generate new knowledge. Ideally they would distribute and utilize this new knowledge in the form of new capacity in their field, be it research results, innovations or talent.

CoEs are typically geographically concentrated and focused on high potential/growth areas in science and industry, but they may also be virtual/distributed and consist of a network of co-operative partners with a co-ordinating centre.