Continuing UCalgary's transdisciplinary journey

In 2012, in response to the bold ambitions set out in UCalgary’s Eyes High vision, the Office of the Vice-President (Research), under the leadership of Dr. Ed McCauley, created a strategic research plan with three major priorities. We sought to match our strengths with opportunities, to increase our research capacity, and create a dynamic research environment to promote research excellence. 

Critical to those priorities were the Strategic Research Themes — areas where we had national and international scholarly excellence and could bring together scholars from many disciplines to tackle global issues. By building a Confederation of Scholars from the ground up in each of the Strategic Research Themes, our scholars were able to identify grand challenges where they felt the University of Calgary could make big advances. Each multidisciplinary team developed their own research strategy for achieving results, with tremendous success.

This model has been praised by our peers and put UCalgary on the map as a leader in strategic approaches to institutional growth and research impact. It was an energetic and inspiring time to be a member of the academy at UCalgary. We are incredibly grateful for the academy’s participation and commitment to the Strategic Research Themes.

The themes were a central feature of the research and innovation landscape from 2012-2025. They were a driver to convening inter- and transdisciplinary scholarship and were the basis of the university’s research and innovation identity. The themes were:

• Energy Innovations for Today and Tomorrow
• Engineering Solutions for Health
• Brain and Mental Health
• Human Dynamics in a Changing World
• Infections, Inflammations and Chronic Diseases
• New Earth Space Technologies
• One Health
• Child Health and Wellness (now led by the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute)

We had many successes emerge from the themes, including: 

• The One Child Every Child Canada First Research Excellence Fund grant, led by Child Health and Wellness scholars
• The Global Research Initiative Canada First Research Excellence Fund grant and Dr. Steven Bryant’s Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Materials Engineering for Unconventional Oil Reservoirs, led by Energy Innovations scholars
• Creation of the International Microbiome Centre, led by Infections, Inflammations and Chronic Diseases
• Creation of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Schulich School of Engineering, formed out of Engineering Solutions for Health
• Growth of our innovation ecosystem, thanks to scholars from all themes 

The themes have now transitioned to new states or concluded, and the Institutes for Transdisciplinary Scholarship (ITS) and the Areas of Focus — Cities and Societies, Digital Worlds, Energy Futures, Health and Life, Democracy, Justice, and Sustainability — are the next evolution of how the university does the work of transdisciplinary scholarship, which emerged as a strength in the prior model. Transdisciplinary scholarship means working together across disciplines and with our affected communities to solve societal challenges. 

These areas do not map onto faculties or specialties but instead intersect to support the development of integrated knowledge. The Areas of Focus are broad arenas to engage within and serve as a mechanism for scholars to develop and collaborate on more distilled ideas with concrete objectives. Outcomes of these distilled ideas can include major grant applications,  startups, or in some instances the creation of a new centre or institute. 

The university continues to support disciplinary, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research excellence through the faculties and research institutes. And while we are taking this new approach, research does not have to be transdisciplinary to fall within one or more of the areas. They are intentionally broad to include all the work that is happening on our campuses.

ITS and the Areas of Focus are future-focused and reflect our current world. We’ve gained the Digital Worlds area, which includes some of our areas of research strength such as quantum and cybersecurity. The cross-cutting area of Democracy, Justice, and Sustainability reflects how these critical areas permeate everything that we do as an institution — more than ever, we need a collective approach to impact societal challenges, facilitated by collaboration, co-learning and knowledge transformation informed by multiple perspectives.

Transdisciplinary scholarship enriches the academic landscape in similar ways to Indigenous perspectives by viewing the world through multiple lenses. The holistic approach to this work across disciplines and partnered with community makes this research practice align closely to Indigenous ways of doing, further supporting our institution’s commitment to fostering parallel paths in scholarship.

Researchers who were involved with the Strategic Research Themes prior to their wind-down are encouraged to reference their involvement, just in the past tense, or in a way that reflects the new state of each theme. This will be facilitated by the UCalgary Profiles system updates. 

I encourage our research community to get involved with ITS, either by attending an event or by contacting the ITS team to learn more. Transdisciplinary scholarship is rich with opportunities for all, and I welcome you to get involved. Thank you for your continued support and dedication in making UCalgary a leading research institution.