The Center for Great Plains Studies is an interdisciplinary, intercollegiate, regional research and teaching program chartered in 1976 by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents and administered in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A region with highly variable weather set against grassy, rolling land, the Great Plains stretches westward from the Missouri River at Omaha and Kansas City to the Rocky Mountains, and northward from the Texas Panhandle into the Canadian Prairie Provinces. The region invites inquiry into the relationships between the environment and the cultures brought to it by its various inhabitants, as well as the implications of these relationships for the future.

The purpose of the Center is to promote a greater understanding of the people, culture, history, and environment of the Great Plains through a variety of research, teaching, and outreach programs. To achieve this broad objective, the Center encompasses nine divisions: the Great Plains Art Museum, three academic journals, Plains Humanities Alliance, undergraduate and graduate programs, editing projects, research support, outreach programs, annual interdisciplinary symposia, and Fellows and Associate Fellows.