Strategic Research Plan
The Strategic Research Plan guides the University in responding effectively to the changing environment in research opportunities, and provides a platform for participation in international research-related initiatives. It also promotes SFU's research strengths to government, community partners, and funding organizations.
The major objectives of SFU's Strategic Research Plan are to:
- Maximize opportunities for discovery and innovation;
- Promote internationally competitive research and scholarship;
- Cultivate excellence through selective investment in emerging areas of research;
- Facilitate collaborations across disciplinary and institutional boundaries;
- Recruit and retain outstanding students, research fellows, and faculty;
- Encourage effective communication and dissemination of research results;
- Optimize use of our research and scholarship resources;
- Recognize the full value of intellectual property;
- Achieve thematic coherence in the expression of SFU’s research interests;
- Engage all our communities for the benefit of society.
The seven integrative strategic research themes defined in SFU's current Strategic Research Plan are:
- Origins
- Communication, Computation and Technology
- Culture, Society and Human Behaviour
- Economic Organization, Public Policy, and Global Community
- Environment, Resources, and Conservation
- Health and Biomedical Sciences
- Pedagogy
The CRC and CFI Strategic Research Plan is required when working with the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and any federal granting agency program that requires an SRP. SFU's CRC-CFI SRP links to SFU's full Strategic Research Plan and contains an overview of the seven major research themes and associated sub-themes, as well as information specific to the CRC program. A summary of the following document can be obtained from the Canada Research Chairs website
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Background and Consultation Process
In late 2009 and early 2010, the Vice-President, Research worked closely with the Faculty Deans and Associate Deans of Research to optimize SFU's Strategic Research Plan to guide the University through 2010-2015.
Through a public consultation process, the Vice-President, Research invited the University community's input on whether the existing SRP's research themes and subthemes should be revised and expanded to include emerging areas of strength.
The resulting plan articulates the University's strengths by amplifying the original integrative research themes, and by adding two new themes on Origins and Pedagogy. In addition, the critical role of the fundamentals of research is stressed in this plan.
New/expanded research themes and subthemes are broadly based, cross Faculties, and represent the overall interest of the University in accordance with our statement of values of commitments.
SRP Progress: SFU Emerging as a Research Leader
Excerpt from SFU Research Matters, Fall 2012.
During the past decade, a Strategic Research Plan was crafted to identify and amplify thematic spikes of excellence in an already healthy individual research landscape. Led by research and innovation champions, SFU focused on developing capacity in key subject areas to be ready to seize emerging opportunities. We needed to remove barriers between disciplines and faculties, add infrastructure, create incubation centres responsive to the push-pull of innovation, and build collaborative and international networks. This, we maintained, would give SFU a competitive edge in the shifting external research climate.
There is compelling evidence to suggest that this strategy is paying off, beyond SFU’s dramatic fourfold increase in research income over the past decade and its improved performance in national and global rankings. Individual scholarly effort across the comprehensive spectrum is making headlines, from art performances and new works of literature, to programs that inspire imagination in learning, new tools for mining data, and health research that guides policy and practice.
SFU researchers are engaging communities locally and globally, from Vancouver’s mentally challenged and homeless, to the parents and teachers of South Asian children at risk for heart disease. They are connecting people with their cultural heritage through digitization and outreach projects with BC’s Aboriginal, Chinese-Canadian and Indo-Canadian communities. Investment into research resources, individual, and team development over the past decade is reflected in SFU’s strong showing in publication output and impact, national grant competitions, prestigious external awards and fellowships, participation in major collaborative projects, and levels of public engagement. Another measure of SFU’s research performance is international co-authorship. In the past decade, SFU researchers have co-authored papers with colleagues from more than 2000 institutions around the world.
The dividends from investment can also be seen in the growth of SFU’s innovation ecosystem, which, over the past decade, has spun-out, mentored, incubated and assisted 201 companies, adding more than 2,400 jobs to the economy and an estimated $186 million in annual tax revenues.
For more on SFU's research performance, please see the Research Performance page.