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a centre of academic excellence

a centre for academic excellence

Would you please throw an example show me what is the difference between those?

Many thanks

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    As far as I know, both are correct. Centre of academic excellence and Centre for Academic Excellence. Though the use of for here is not so common, and mostly used with some names. This graph will show the comparison.
    – Man_From_India
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 8:49
  • A priori (without looking for relative prevalence of usage), I would interpret a "Center of Excellence" as a locus that had been recognized by outside parties as being excellent in whatever it does. I would read "Center forExcellence" as a self-named center for the purpose of promoting/fomenting/rewarding excellence in what other people do (presumably the other divisions of the institution that established the Center.) But people can name intitutes however they wish.
    – Brian Hitchcock
    Commented Mar 28, 2015 at 12:34
  • Compare, for example, National Intitute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention] (CDC). or the National Association for the advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the NAM (National Association of Manufacturers)
    – Brian Hitchcock
    Commented Mar 28, 2015 at 12:40

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Wikipedia defines center of excellence as:

a team, a shared facility or an entity that provides leadership, evangelization, best practices, research, support and/or training for a technology, a business concept, a skill, or a broad area of study.

Here is an Ngram that contrasts the usage of center of excellence vs center for excellence. From this, I think we can conclude two things:

  • Centers of excellence are trending – that is, universities and other organizations are founding new ones all the time.
  • Somewhere along the way (perhaps in the mid-1970s?), some folks decided that for might be a better preposition to use than of.

What is the difference between the two? I don't think there is any, except in name and name alone. Near as I can tell, the Wikipedia definition of center of excellence would apply to a center for excellence.

It's worth noting that for and of can be used interchangeably at times. Both prepositions have several meanings, and a few of them overlap. For example, I can say:

According to Macmillan's definition of 'center of excellence'

or:

According to Macmillan's definition for 'center of excellence'

So why would an organization pick for rather than of, when of is more common? I can think of two possible reasons:

  1. Some might consider for to be a more "active" preposition, while of is a more "passive" preposition. (You don't campaign of a cause, you campaign for a cause.) A university's center for teaching excellence is not a static entity – it's trying to promote good teaching within the institution.

  2. Some might think that the term center of excellence could be a little ambiguous. One dictionary defines the term as, quite simply, "a place where there are very high standards of work". Also, one medical dictionary rather disdainfully mentions that center of excellence is "a colloquial, jargonistic, and vastly overused term."

This is one of those areas that a learner might agonize over, while a native speaker would neither give much thought to which preposition was chosen, nor discern any significant difference in meaning between a Center of Academic Excellence and a Center for Academic Excellence.

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Good question. I searched the phrases and found that both are in practice.

Regent Oxford is a centre of academic excellence for which we have been renowned locally and internationally since we were established in 1953 - Regent English Language Training

And...

National, state and local officials praised the University of South Alabama’s School of Computing as USA announced on Feb. 11 its continuing designation as a Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance and Cyber Defense from the U.S. National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. - University of South Alabama

And...

We have a center for academic excellence that we intend to roll out.... - a statement in Washington Post.

It's worth noting that string "...for academic excellence..." shows no results on Ngram. And I tried both the spellings -center and centre.

Personally, I'd prefer 'of' over 'for'.

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    Actually, we should "prefer" is the one that most accurately conveys what we intend to convey. The numbers on the Ngram are very small – too small to say that "for" is the wrong choice, particularly when Googling "center for * excellence" returns countless hits.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 9:36
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    This question is a good one; several organizations opt to use for, while others use of. You've ended your answer with because «for academic excellence» shows no results on Ngram .. This means, we should prefer 'of' over 'for' . That's bad advice, for two reasons: (1) It ignores hundreds of centers for excellence that are easily found on Google, and (2) it promotes to the false belief that following an Ngram will lead a learner to select the right word. I applaud you for the research effort, but I strongly disagree with your conclusion from it.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 9:53
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    @J.R. edited. Yes, personally, I also prefer 'of' over 'for'.
    – Maulik V
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 10:13
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    @J.R. and Maulik: I agree with J.R. We should all be more careful when drawing conclusions based on results from corpora. Also, in relation to our case, searching for center * excellence on Google Ngram shows results of both of and for.
    – Damkerng T.
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 10:32
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    @DamkerngT. - Especially when we forget that Ngrams are case-dependent!
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 10:54

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