What is the goal of the Strategic Research Plan?

The Faculty of Education’s 2021-2025 Strategic Research Plan has two main goals: first, to articulate how current research activities in our Faculty of Education align with the three core values of the 2018-2023 Five-Year Academic Plan (equity, Indigeneity, culture of inquiry); and second, to support new research activities related to the key priorities of the Five-Year Academic Plan. In terms of the first goal, the document highlights and communicates current work aligned with the Faculty of Education’s core values to our colleagues and community. Regarding the second, the document intends to support new research and scholarship activities, which include ways of seeking funding, mobilising student research, collaborating with communities, and pursuing tenure and promotion. This document is meant to create a cohesive and supportive research community in the Faculty of Education. Like the Five-Year Plan, the SRP is considered a living document that faculty will engage with and contribute to continuously over the its four-year period.

What was the process?

The 2021-2025 Strategic Research Plan draws on the Faculty of Education’s Five-Year Academic Plan (2018–2023) to focus on four priority areas that are traversed by the three, intertwined core values of Indigeneity, equity and culture of inquiry. As the threads in the illustration indicate, these values are both independent of and intertwined with each other. They function to support and guide the four priorities. Given that we are already halfway into our 5-year plan, this SRP aims to highlight the research initiatives already been underway and how we plan to build on them in the coming years.

The development of this plan began in Spring 2020, under the leadership of the Associate Dean, Research, John Nesbit and the Director of the Research Hub, Cindy Xin. With the participation of 2019-2020 RAWG members (Mark Fettes, Gillian Judson, Ena Lee, Masahiro Minami, Amy Parent, Stephen Smith, Suzanne Smythe, Poh Tan, Phil Winne), a list of priorities was drawn from the Faculty of Education’s Five-Year Academic Plan. These were then crystallised into the four priority areas. In September 2020, the new Associate Dean, Research and International, Nathalie Sinclair continued the process with Cindy Xin and the 2020-2021 RAWG members (Elina Birmingham, Mark Fettes, Gillian Judson, Ena Lee, Masahiro Minami, Michelle Pidgeon, Stephen Smith, Suzanne Smythe, Poh Tan and Phil Winne). Draft versions of the Strategic Research Plan have been discussed by the Executive as well as at the Indigenous Education Research Council. The illustrations were developed by Kristen Elbow from Drawing Change.