After eight months of consultation with the community, as well as internal and external research partners, the York Senate has unanimously approved the University’s new strategic research plan, "Building on Strength".
“York’s new strategic research plan commits to building research on our strengths and provides a strong aspirational vision for the development and recognition of York’s research over the next five years,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation. “I would like to thank the entire York community for your positive response to the consultation process and earnest engagement that made such important contributions to the development of the plan. We will continue to invest in the growth and development of our research as a foundational part of our efforts to grow our academic reputation as a recognized leading research-intensive university.”
Robert Haché
The plan supports the University’s research vision to better understand the human condition and the world around us and to employ the knowledge gained in the service of society as described in six intersecting themes:
- advancing fundamental discovery and critical knowledge,
- analyzing cultures and mobilizing creativity,
- building healthy lives and communities,
- exploring the frontiers of science and technology,
- forging a just and sustainable world,
- integrating entrepreneurial innovation and the public good.
The plan also articulates five areas of opportunities that complement past accomplishments, new developments, momentum and timing to provide particular opportunities for building research success. They include:
- digital cultures,
- engineering research that matters,
- healthy individuals, healthy communities and global health,
- public engagement for a just and sustainable world, and
- scholarship of socially engaged research.
Through this plan, the University is implementing the objectives set out for research in both the University Academic Plan and the Provost’s 2010 white paper, which identify research intensification as a key University goal and recognize research as a core endeavor that broadly enriches the institution. The plan is meant to be a living document, responsive to the University's successes, as well as being sensitive to a rapidly evolving landscape.
Through a strategic combination of broadly based and focused investments over the course of the next five years, York University will continue its impressive development as a leading Canadian research university whose scholarship enhances our culture and improves society.
To view the full plan, click here.
Vice-President Research & Innovation Robert Haché is inviting researchers to a series of informal discussions to provide them with an opportunity to discuss a broad spectrum of research issues, including the development of the new strategic research plan, through community chats that will be held from January to April.
York, the availability of research tools and infrastructure, and other research-related information. All members of the York University community are invited to participate and responses will remain confidential.
