October 2014

Gauri Sreenivasan, Director of Policy & Programming

After the terrible attacks last week in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa, the nation’s capital is slowly but surely returning to regularly scheduled activities. Parliament has re-opened to the public, municipal elections were held yesterday, schools are open, and all citizens in Ottawa are reclaiming the basic freedoms and rights essential to our open and democratic society. The Federation and its staff experienced a precautionary office lock down and tense moments last week as we struggled to understand, alongside so many, what was happening a few blocks away. 

This week, the Federation is pleased to be part of getting Ottawa working again: we are hosting a Big Thinking lecture on Parliament Hill featuring Bartha Knoppers who will speak about the impact of “Big Data on our healthcare system”. We note that across...

A day after the gun attack in Ottawa, the debate has started over how Canada should respond. Among these are the voices of academics. Wesley Wark, professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, urges Canadians in his Globe and Mail op-ed to be resilient, and ensure that our democratic society does not get “bent out of shape” by recent events. Le Devoir interviewed Criminology professor Maurice Cusson, who reminds us that homicide claims far more...

Marcello Vitali-Rosati and Michael E. Sinatra, Université de Montréal 

Avec les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, nous avons créé une collection en accès libre qui s’intitule « Parcours numériques »[1] et dont les trois premières publications sont sorties en 2014. La collection est basée sur l’idée qu’il doit y avoir une complémentarité entre l’édition papier et l’édition numérique, ces deux formes de publication présupposant différentes idées de lecture et deux approches à la réception des contenus.

Le livre papier – et l’on entend ici également le numérique homothétique (epub ou pdf) qui reproduit à l’identique le livre papier sur un support numérique – permet une lecture linéaire. Une thèse...

Happy Open Access Week!

To celebrate the 8th annual Open Access Week, the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences is launching an Open Access blog series, which will run from October 20-24. Through these blog posts, we hope to add our voice to the international community of scholars, publishers and citizens calling for free and open access to innovative research in all disciplines.

The Federation believes in the ability of the humanities and social sciences to contribute to a free and democratic society, and we have been committed to crafting an open access policy for our Awards for Scholarly...

Jean-Marc Mangin, Executive Director, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

I am very pleased to introduce Gauri Sreenivasan as our new Director of Policy and Programs. Gauri brings nearly 25 years of policy and programming experience, most recently as the Director of Parliamentary Affairs in the Official Opposition Leader`s Office.  Gauri also worked for 15 years at the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC) as a senior analyst and team coordinator. Gauri has a deep understanding of the legislative and policy making process, including the complexities of the interactions between research, policy stakeholders, and decision makers across a wide range of issues-- both domestic and global in scope.  I look forward to calling on her rich expertise...

Every year, university campuses across the country fill with the hum and excitement of students looking for personally and intellectually transformative experiences. These students represent an unrivalled wealth of social and intellectual capital. Many of them dream of changing the world when they are older, but some universities are encouraging their students to tap into this energy as part of their education.

Key among these institutions is Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. The Federation had the privilege to speak to a leader in community engagement at SFU, Shauna Sylvester, Professor of Professional Practice, Director of the SFU...

Jean-Marc Mangin, Executive Director, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

“I love you, please change.”

These words succinctly capture Stephen Toope’s message to Canadian universities in his rich, nuanced and compelling October 2014 report for Taking Action for Canada: Jobs and Skills for the 21st Century. An initiative of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Taking Action for Canada seeks to bring together educators, governments and businesses to develop solutions and best practices for keeping the next generation of Canadian workers engaged. 

Toope, a scholar of international law, is President-Elect of the Federation. He...