Fostering Cross Faculty Research Collaboration

The objectives and actions for this priority draw on insights from past activities and initiatives (The Possible’s Slow Fusei Series, From the Ground Upii scholarship series at the FoE Surrey Campus, Faculty writing retreats at the Vancouver campus, Research Hub website, Research in Focus newsletter).

2020-2021 Activities

  1. Faculty Forum celebrating recently funded research projects
  2. New faculty orientation to the Research Hub services
  3. New faculty writing circle
  4. The Research Hub interactive visualisation project
    • Identify programs that already cut across cognate areas to find out how they were initiated and the extent to which they provide opportunities for cross-faculty research collaborations
    • Identify existing research centres that are offering cross-faculty collaborations
    • Identify existing crossfaculty collaborations and potential new directions

Objectives

  1. Provide an inter-disciplinary forum for faculty members to meet and share their research interests and work, especially in relation to our three core values
  2. Identify possible transdisciplinary and plurilingual projects that could mobilise a diverse range of faculty expertise in relation to current, significant challenges
  3. Make the scholarship of our faculty and students more visible to internal and external audiences through various means of communications and marketing
  4. Provide adequate research space to support the activities of specific research teams, Centres, as well as facilitate potential cross-faculty collaborations
  5. Support the career trajectories of new faculty members as well as mid-career faculty members
  6. Review and support the sustainability and research activities of existing Centres

Actions

  1. Continue two years of Possible’s Slow Fuse with a specific mandate to foster cross-faculty research collaboration, especially that which includes Indigenous perspectives and inclusive practices
  2. Create appealing and informative data visualisations that can communicate, both internally and externally, the range and diversity of faculty projects and draw attention to our collective work
  3. Formulate a set of (10 or so) core questions that could drive faculty research, support interdisciplinary approaches and reduce the siloing effects of the current “cognate” structure
  4. Make the Research Hub and the Learning Hub complementary to each other by having the former dedicated to quiet work, research meetings, storage of confidential materials, and access to research software etc., and the latter used for workshops, larger meetings and production activities (e.g. podcasting, maker space)
  5. Continue new faculty onboarding related to research and develop a research-informed programme for mid-career faculty members
  6. Devise ways of connecting the activities of FoE

i Please see https://www.sfu.ca/education-research-hub/events/past/2021.html—use the tabs to find out about the 2019 and 2020 speakers.
ii Use the link above to find speakers from 2018 to 2019.