In June 2019, we announced our 2020-2023 Strategy and Growth Framework. It is aligned with the Strategy and Capital Allocation Framework that we introduced in October 2015, which provided guiding principles for 2016-2019.
The Strategy and Growth Framework highlights significant opportunities to sell more Corning content through each of our Market-Access Platforms. Under this new Framework, our leadership priorities and our fundamental approach to capital allocation remain the same. We continue to focus our portfolio and utilize our financial strength. We expect to generate strong operating cash flow as we move forward. We will continue to use our cash to grow, extend our leadership, and reward shareholders.
Our first priority for our use of cash is to invest in our growth and extend our leadership. We do this through RD&E investments, capital spending, and strategic M&A. Our next priority is to return excess cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and opportunistic share repurchases.
While 2020, brought unprecedented challenges to our end markets and operations, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic uncertainty, and social unrest, Corning adapted rapidly and remained resilient. We executed well to preserve financial strength, while advancing major innovations with industry leaders. We effectively applied our focused and cohesive portfolio to create value and outperform our underlying markets, contributing to growth in the second half of the year.
Under the Strategy and Capital Allocation Framework we created significant value. We committed to generate more than $26 billion in cash, return more than $12.5 billion to our shareholders through repurchases and dividends, and invest $10 billion to extend our leadership and deliver growth – and we have done exactly what we said we would do. Our strong execution has created a much bigger and stronger Corning.
The new Strategy and Growth Framework defines our leadership priorities through 2023. It’s our original Framework evolved for a new growth era.