Knowledge Mobilization
Deploying evidence-based research into action is at the heart of Ryerson’s mandate of applied learning. Through the mobilization of knowledge, Ryerson and its faculty create connections to individuals and organizations, both inside and outside the campus environment, helping to foster a research process dedicated to informing and meeting societal need.
As director of Ryerson’s SciXchange, Emily Agard (Chemistry and Biology) ensures equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) pathways through community outreach beyond the Ryerson campus. Her project Youth Engagement through Soapbox Science (YESS) connects underrepresented communities and the public with Canada’s own women scientists and scholars, facilitating meetings in order to help young people envision their own futures in the STEM fields.
Julie Tomiak (Sociology) collaborated with Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars from across North America for Settler Colonialism and the Urban Prairie West: A Workshop on Anti-Colonial and Indigenous Urban Scholarship. The workshop was held in Winnipeg and covered topics ranging from Indigenous urban marginalization to political economy. The critical scholarship presented by the workshop contributors is being assembled into a forthcoming publication.
The Strategic Workshop on Big Data in the Built Environment fills a knowledge gap in how big data and information analytics can perform an important role in architecture and the creation of healthy and productive workplaces. Organized by Jennifer McArthur (Architectural Science), the workshop led to the creation of a new online virtual research network of industry and academia called the Resilient Facility Analytics Network.