A word from the President and Vice-President
In the 2020 issue of Research Perspectives, we share exciting projects that are driving research into the future. They show, each in their own way, that we don’t just dare to imagine a better world — we dare to make it so.
The road to transformation
The University of Ottawa is one of Canada’s top 10 research universities, the largest bilingual (French-English) university in the world, and a vibrant hub of community and collaboration. Our students, faculty and staff are striving to make a difference in the world through their innovation, creativity, academic excellence and bilingualism.
As president, I share that ambition and recognize that to thrive in today’s knowledge economy we must position ourselves to meet the challenges that will arise over the next decade. In an era of constant technological and social change, our students and faculty expect us to be nimble. They demand that we seize new opportunities to discover, create and share knowledge. They require our leadership in major scientific and social challenges so that the University remains relevant as we move forward in an increasingly complex and interconnected society.
Mobilizing the University of Ottawa’s research community to forge new frontiers of research is indeed one of the strategies informing Transformation 2030, our new plan to guide us in responding to these imperatives. Transformation 2030 will help us build the university of tomorrow, mapping out our path to greater resilience and enabling us to fulfill our collective potential as we harness the creative spark and envision the world in 2030.
More agile, more connected, more impactful, more sustainable — the University of Ottawa is reimagining what it is to be a university in the 21st century and is looking to the future with confidence, ambition and vision.
Forging new frontiers of discovery
A world of just societies, equal opportunities, universal health and wellness, sustainable technology and socially responsible prosperity is not a delusion or wishful thinking. It is the kind of world researchers at the University of Ottawa are helping to build.
With Transformation 2030 charting a vision for the next decade, the University of Ottawa has redefined how to move discovery and innovation forward. The result is four interconnected Strategic Areas of Research: Advancing just societies, Enabling lifelong health and wellness, Shaping the digital world and Creating a sustainable environment. They tackle some of humanity’s most critical challenges, while pursuing our ideals of excellence, relevance and impact in all that we do.
Our creative and scientific minds — members of diverse, interdisciplinary and international teams — are already breaking new ground in these research areas to address many of the vital issues facing our rapidly changing world. The pace of change has accelerated sharply since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, pressing home the importance of international collaboration like never before.
Whether documenting Indigenous perspectives on well-being, investigating the implications of AI-enabled wireless networks, or shedding light on corporate responsibility and climate change action, our researchers embody the equity, diversity and inclusiveness needed to foster creative solutions for 21st-century problems.
In this issue of Research Perspectives, we share these and other exciting projects that are driving research into the future. They show, each in their own way, that we don’t just dare to imagine a better world — we dare to make it so.
