From: Research Office Subject: PULSE Research and Innovation Newsletter Vol. 12 March 2020 Date: Thursday, March 5, 2020 2:31:24 PM Attachments: image003.png image004.png image009.png image010.png Vol 12 March 2020 Welcome! The Office of Research & Innovation supports research and scholarly activity at OCAD University. We help OCAD U researchers to find funding, develop projects and partnerships and engage students. Contact us today to learn more about how we can support you in all things research at OCAD University. The OCAD U Research Ethics Board (REB) provides an independent, impartial, and equitable ethics review of all research at OCAD U that involves human participants. Learn more about the REB and its processes here. **If you require information published in this newsletter in an alternate format, please forward your request to [email protected] and let us know what format is preferable. We will provide you with an accessible version.** SPOTLIGHT Professor Bonnie Devine: The Power of Roots Thank you Professor Emeritus Bonnie Devine for giving a thoughful and reflective keynote address at the Celebration of Research on December 4th, 2019. Bonnie's text can be accessed here. VP MESSAGE Message from Dr. Robert Luke, VPRI: Celebrating Research at OCADU We are well into the new year and the new academic term and I hope you are reading this having enjoyed a restful break and productive start to the year. A highlight in this issue of Pulse is the text from Professor Emeritus Bonnie Devine’s keynote talk from our Celebration of Research, held on 4 December 2019. Professor Devine was the winner of the 2018 OCAD University Award for Distinguished Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity, and this keynote was an inspiring discussion about Bonnie’s research and creative practice. I was moved by Bonnie’s meditation on the role of research and inquiry, in particular our collective ability—and need—to disrupt and interrogate fact, knowledge and discovery. Professor Devine’s “research methodology of disobedience” is instructive to us all as we meet the challenges put forth in our Academic Plan to “… seek and respond to the questions of our time, and in doing so, enrich our disciplines and act as transformative social, economic, environmental and cultural agents.” Research at OCAD University provides the world with necessary enrichment, broadening the horizons of how we as a society conceive of knowledge and indeed the role of research in the University. This is very important at a time when government Strategic Mandate Agreements and even the granting councils have too-narrow definitions of what constitutes research. This is evident not just in what disciplines are funded, but also in what research metrics are counted. Our This Is Research campaign is illustrative of the rich variety of research and research-creation undertaken at OCADU and the contributions these make to our communities. Professor Devine’s entreaty to “look instead for knowledge…in the text of the land” reminds us to continue to amplify the uniqueness of our collective contributions to research, and to celebrate the uniqueness of research in art, design and media. Update on Research Space We are very pleased to report that, since the University has begun using this new model of research space sharing, we have been able to accommodate 100% more faculty who are conducting research. This is a huge success and a testament to the growth of research at OCADU. Our thanks to the Research Committee, in particular professors Kate Hartman and Kate Sellen, who were instrumental in leading the discussion in the community as we developed the model and criteria for research space allocation. As we have reported here last year, the research space allocation model takes into account the different types of research our community conducts. It also supports directly those faculty who have successfully received research funding. RESEARCH NEWS THIS IS RESEARCH V4 The Office of Research & Innovation is excited to launch the fourth iteration of the "This is Research" campaign to raise awareness about research at OCAD University. This volume features work by Julius Manapul, Veronika Szudlarek, Sarah Tranum, Pam Patterson, Cindy Poremba, and Nithikul Nimkulrat. OCAD University faculty are engaged in inclusive, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research that audaciously and responsibly pursues the questions of our time. THIS IS RESEARCH features posters and media showcasing the many forms of research at the University. You can see the first set of these on the many screens across campus and our website. In concert with provincial efforts being coordinated through the Council of Ontario Universities, “THIS IS RESEARCH” will help to raise the profile of research performed across faculties by the creative professionals, scholars, and strategic thinkers that make up our research community. Please join us in celebrating research at OCADU! If you would like your research to be profiled through “THIS IS RESEARCH” please contact our office at [email protected]. ANNOUNCING THE 2019/2020 AWARDS FOR DISTINGUISHED AND EARLY STAGE RESEARCH Congratulations to Dr. Martha Ladly, for receiving the 2019/2020 Award for Distinguished Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity. Dr. Martha Ladly is an interdisciplinary artist and designer. Her practice-based research takes a feminist approach, employing new technologies with a critical view towards their impacts on human bodies, cultures, and societies. She employs creative practices, narrative methodologies, and sensitive user design principles to approach diverse subject matters. Martha has co-designed mobile applications to investigate community histories (Park Walk); tablet applications to support elders with memory loss (Postcard Memories); and created gesture-based installations to enable video search and display of an historic CBC News corpus (The CBC Newsworld Holodeck). ​ Her current SSHRC funded project, Decoding Origins, has been co-developed with co-Principal Investigator Dr. Katrina Keefer and researcher Kartikay Chadha with an international, multicultural team of researchers. Their work employs art, design, archival research and collection, digitization and data visualization, to uncover and restore African identities and life stories which the slave trade sought to erase. A cautious hope is that the research may soon assist ancestors of enslaved individuals in tracing their origins back to African homelands. Congratualtions to Dr. Alia Weston for receiving the 2019/2020 Award for Excellence in Early Research. Dr. Alia Weston is an Associate Professor of Creative and Business Enterprise. Through her research and practice Alia explores the intersection of business, creativity and social change. She takes a critical theory perspective to question dominant research paradigms and redefine how we understand knowledge; exploring themes such as critical business practice, creative work practices in resource constraints, social innovation in education, and experiential food methodology. Some examples of Alia’s research include the Impact Collective social innovation project (co-directed with Zev Farber, CEAD), Good w/ Food research project (with Zev Farber and Alexandra Hong, CEAD), and Culture Creates Bonds (with Sara Diamond, Marcus Gordon, Rachna Kumar and Zoe Dion- Van Royen). Alia’s work as an educator and researcher is supported by her practice as a designer- entrepreneur. She uses her design practice, the Alia Weston jewelry brand, as a living research project and utilizes insights to teach OCAD U students about the how-to aspects of running a creative business. ​ OCAD U Participates in eCampusOntario Micro- Certification Pilot Project The Office of Research and Innovation, with support from the Centre for Emerging Artist + Designer, and in partnership with the Faculty of Curriculum Development Centre and Office of Continuing Studies have been awarded $25,000 to participate in eCampusOntario’s Micro-Certification Pilot Project. OCAD U is one of 14 institutions* out 34 applicants to be selected to participate in this pilot project. Working together with our industry partner, Myant Inc., the team is developing a micro-certification course in user-centred product design that will be included in Continuing Studies’ non-degree credit, certificate courses, this spring. This micro-certification course will provide OCAD U alumni and other emerging design professionals, a unique way to certify achievement of a specific set of skills that are in demand in the labour market. The project team will be presenting their work on this pilot at the eCampusOntario Micro-certification Forum 2020 on February 21, at the Toronto Reference Library. *Participating Universities and Colleges: OCAD U, Waterloo, York, Queens, Western, Wilfrid Laurier, Western, Windsor + Ontario Tech, George Brown, Humber, Conestoga, Lambton, Sault, St. Lawrence. FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES Research Funding Opportunities Please contact [email protected] for more information on research funding opportunities. You may also visit the Research Funding Opportunities page for a more comprehensive list. OCAD University Research Seed Grant Program This internal funding opportunity is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through its Institutional Grants (SIG) program. Through the SIG program, SSHRC provides annual block grants to help postsecondary institutions fund small-scale research, research-creation and research dissemination activities in the social sciences