The school has been a champion of the University of Ottawa's mission towards Franco-Ontarians, language duality and bilingualism. From the outset, all its programs at both the undergraduate and the graduate level are offered in French and in English.

The specific mission of the undergraduate program in psychology is to provide students with an understanding of the mental structures and processes that underlie individual human experience and behaviour, the scientific methodologies by which such a knowledge base is acquired, and the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate scientific and popular claims concerning behaviour. For a subgroup of our undergraduate majors (particularly those intending to continue into graduate study), we also seek to provide in-depth research apprenticeships in our faculty's laboratories.

The specific mission of our graduate programs in experimental and clinical psychology is to educate and train students for careers in basic and applied scientific psychological research that are currently defined as five main and active research fields, Behavioural Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Lifespan Psychology, Social & Community Psychology, with the outcome being graduates who will produce and apply scientific knowledge in their research and/or teaching in a variety of contexts.  For those who pursue careers in clinical psychology, training is offered in a scientist-practitioner model of psychological service, with a special emphasis on evidence-based interventions. An integral part of the clinical program is the Centre for Psychological Services, whose mission is to deliver psychological services to the general population of the region, to provide training to doctoral students in clinical psychology, and to facilitate research.