Katie Plaisance leads University of Waterloo’s contribution to a landmark $2.5 Million SSHRC funded project
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Katie Plaisance, professor, and chair of the Department of Knowledge Integration (KI), Faculty of Environment
Katie Plaisance, professor, and chair of the Department of Knowledge Integration (KI), Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, is Waterloo’s lead for a $2.5 million Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The grant, which involves 15 academic institutions, eight regional United Way networks, and 18 other community partners across six provinces, supports a groundbreaking 6-year collaborative research project titled “Experiential Learning Toolkits to Increase Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts (SSHA) Capacity for Research and Innovation in the Social Sector.”
This ambitious research project is led by Dr. Sandra Lapointe, professor of Philosophy at McMaster University, with Plaisance leading the University of Waterloo’s involvement. Plaisance is also co-lead for the Talent & Skills Consulting Team tasked with developing, piloting, and assessing the effectiveness of four practica-training modules that are key project components.
The University of Waterloo’s Dr. Rob Gorbet, associate professor in KI, and Dr. Sean Geobey, associate professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) are also contributing to the research project. Plaisance hired Dr. Maryam Mohiuddin Ahmed, who recently earned her PhD at Waterloo under Geobey’s supervision, as a postdoctoral scholar for the project. Ahmed has extensive experience in social innovation and decolonial approaches to education.
The project aims to empower graduate students to address societal challenges, such as climate change, pandemics, poverty, and housing. To do so, it seeks to increase the capacity for research and innovation in the social sector by providing SSHA students with foundational skills training and community-based experiential learning opportunities. Students in SSHA are typically trained for careers in academia. However, as job opportunities in academia become increasingly limited, there is a growing disconnect between the skills students acquire and the demands of the job market. Moreover, non-profit, government, industry, and other sectors need the knowledge and skills that SSHA students are acquiring. The project will train 124 SSHA students at various levels, highlighting the crucial role of SSHA education in driving social innovation and amplifying the impact of SSHA knowledge on society.
Reflecting on the project, Plaisance highlighted the synergy between the Knowledge Integration program and the project’s goals.
Knowledge Integration (KI) is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program emphasizing foundational skills and attributes such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, and intercultural awareness. Students learn how to collaborate effectively across disciplinary boundaries and in diverse teams. These attributes are in high demand by employers – and they are precisely what this project seeks to instill in SSHA graduate students. I am delighted that KI is leading Waterloo’s contribution to this effort.
The research partnership will also see the development and implementation of the Skills Articulation and Literacy Tool (SALT), a foundational element of the Partnership Grant project. Plaisance played a key role in developing this tool alongside principal investigator Lapointe, with contributions from a KI graduate who helped pilot the tool with over a dozen KI students.
This partnership, supported by the SSHRC, exemplifies the potential of cross-sectoral collaboration in driving social impact and innovation. As the project unfolds over the next six years, it promises to equip a new generation of SSHA researchers with the skills and knowledge necessary to address some of Canada’s most pressing social challenges.
