Strategic Academic Plan
The challenges facing our society today are complex and multifaceted, and require collaboration and innovation across traditional disciplinary boundaries to be effectively addressed. McGill is working to foster a culture of interdisciplinary research, teaching and innovation that encourages faculty and students to engage with one another and with external partners from a variety of sectors.
The university has created several initiatives and programs that bring together researchers, scholars, and practitioners from diverse backgrounds to collaborate on innovative projects, drawing on a range of expertise from the STEM, social sciences and humanities fields, and providing a framework and infrastructures that foster collaboration and creativity.
Goals
Investing resources in large interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral projects
Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives (HBHL)
Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives is an interdisciplinary program, built on McGill's global leadership in interdisciplinary neuroscience, that uses big data analysis to reveal the fundamental mechanisms underlying normal brain function and brain disorders. HBHL aims to accelerate translational discoveries and create a global centre of excellence in neuroinformatics at McGill to improve brain health in Canada and around the world.
McGill Sustainability Systems Initiatives (MSSI)
Created in 2016 and launched in September 2017, the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiatives (MSSI) is bringing together researchers from a variety of fields to address today’s sustainability challenges at a global level, and to equip our communities with the knowledge and tools needed to create a greener, more equitable and sustainable society. Structured according to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the MSSI's mission is to support and fund these interdisciplinary research groups, enabling them to interact and conduct projects that will lead to social, scientific and technological advances.
To date, more than 240 faculty members from 37 Departments and Schools are involved in the Initiative, and 60 projects have received funding.
Max Bell School of Public Policy (MBSPP)
Launched in November 2017, McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy is committed to the research, teaching, public outreach, and practical advocacy of sound public policy, with each of these four dimensions grounded in a solid understanding of the overall policy process, not merely as it is described in theory but as it exists in the real world. The MBSPP aims to create the next generation of national and global policy leaders with expertise across multiple domains and disciplines.
New Vic Project
The impact of the MSSI and MBSPP will be enhanced by their close integration with another ambitious project at McGill: the transformation of the former Royal Victoria Hospital site into a centre of multidisciplinary education and research, the New Vic Project.
This new facility, anchored by the Sustainability Systems Initiative and the Max Bell School of Public Policy, will feature research laboratories, teaching and learning spaces, public spaces and natural spaces. The complex will serve the McGill community by providing world-class spaces for education and research, but it will also be a collaborative hub where our partners, community groups and citizens are invited to share and contribute to the intellectual vibrancy of the site. The New Vic will be rooted in its community, its history, its city, and its territory.
DNA to RNA (D2R): An inclusive Canadian approach to RNA therapeutics
D2R is a unique interdisciplinary program that will deliver novel, genomic, medicine-based RNA therapies to benefit the health of people afflicted by infectious diseases or by rare and neglected diseases, or who are suffering from cancer. Building on a revolution in medicine created by a convergence of scientific breakthroughs in genomics and RNA, D2R will make Canada a world leader in RNA-based medicine development and social and regulatory health policy implementation.
McGill University has been awarded $165 million from the Canadian Government through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) to pursue this research initiative. The largest research grant in McGill’s history, the D2R initiative leverages McGill’s decades-long expertise in DNA and RNA research to develop the next generation of RNA medicines.
Research Group on Health and Law
The McGill Research Group on Health and Law is a research network that seeks to foster the sharing of scholarship and ideas among professors and students, and encourages collaborative work on health-related issues. It also seeks to build interdisciplinary bridges across the University with colleagues working on health-related topics. Finally, it aims to provide students with a breadth of opportunities for pursuing intellectual endeavours in the field of health law through course work, independent research, graduate studies, or extra-curricular engagements.
McGill School of Population and Global Health
Established in 2016, the McGill School of Population and Global Health is an interdisciplinary institution that fosters high-impact research and education. The School is the coming together of: Bioethics; Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Occupational Health, Global Health, as well as Health & Social Policy.
The School’s mandate is to nurture the development of world-class – and ground-breaking – research, novel educational programs, and scholarly innovations that address pressing and prospective population and global health challenges. Building on the existing strengths of the various units housed within the SPGH, the impetus to develop and disseminate knowledge and know-how for effective interventions and policies to prevent, protect and enhance the health and well-being of individuals and populations in Quebec, Canada and globally with a particular focus on those with the greatest unmet needs.
Refining policies and practices to ensure faculty members have meaningful incentives to connect across disciplines and beyond the scholarly community
Resident Faculty Fellowships, San Francisco (US)
From 2019 to 2022, McGill sponsored six 9-12 month Fellowships at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) in San Francisco. These Resident Faculty Fellowships provided an opportunity for McGill faculty to work collaboratively with colleagues from the academic, industry, government and policy spheres on forward-thinking and problem-solving opportunities. This activity is clustered around four portfolios: Data Policy, Blockchain and Digital Currency, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, IoT, Smart Cities and Robotics
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