Grant: CCI Mobilize Grants

The Centre for Research and Innovation at Fanshawe College has developed an operational plan for the period 2021-22 to 2024-25 (covering the College's existing Strategic Mandate Agreement and institutional Research Plan) intended to address institutional priorities such as the growth of existing capacity across the institution, the extension of research supports and services, and the development of experiential learning components that provide graduates with future-facing skills and competencies, all while growing and strengthening partnership activities, focusing research expertise and infrastructure around key and emerging industry sectors in the London region to maximize economic impact, and embedding EDI practices and principles throughout all research activities undertaken by the College. However, while CRI enjoys strong support from the College for its core operations, managing significantly increased levels of research activities, multiple new research centres, and plans for the incorporation of EDI principles into research and training operations requires additional resources in order not just to sustain current operational levels, but to grow beyond them. Mobilize funding, applied in the broad categories of business development, industry-led project support, and new researcher training and development, would allow CRI to unify diverse research centres and activities around a master plan to serve our partners’ needs and broader regional economic priorities, while also creating an accessible, inclusive culture of research at Fanshawe that promotes increased research activities and cultivates new researchers and HQP in the areas where the region is experiencing its more pressing labour shortages. In practice, CRI identifies three broad objectives for this funding: 1) the maturation of research capabilities across its research centres in terms of the number of projects completed, researchers engaged, and students trained, 2) the harmonization of research services in terms of the number and type of partnerships and the level of cross-collaboration between research centres, and 3) the implementation of enhanced researcher and student training in terms of both research skills and incorporation of EDI principles and practices .