Friday, February 28, 2025

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• Task Forces issue reports
• The Foundation: Building Inclusive Research Teams webinar coming up
• Sustainability Integration in Curriculum Community of Practice sessions open

• Waterloo’s creator-owned IP policy inspires shift for New Zealand's government

• Notes as February fades to black

Task Forces issue reports

The Foundation: Building Inclusive Research Teams webinar coming up

A message from the Office of the Vice-President, Research and International.

The Foundation: Building Inclusive Research Teams, is coming up on Friday, March 7 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

Research shows that building inclusive research teams promotes research excellence. This presentation will take researchers through the necessary steps to identify EDI barriers on their teams, make a plan to address the barriers, and to review the outcomes of the actions they have taken and plan for the future. Please register to receive the Zoom link to participate. Please note that this is a link to a new registration page. The original registration pages are no longer available due to a technical problem. Anyone who has already registered must re-register. Apologies for this inconvenience.

Upcoming webinars:

• What is GBA+ Anyway? An Introduction, Monday, March 24, 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.Register.
• The Decolonial “R’s” of Research: Principled Approaches to Engaging Indigenous Communities,Monday, April 28, 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.Register

Resources

• The Inclusive Resource Hub
• The Inclusive Research website

For more information or questions, please reach out to research.equity@uwaterloo.ca or  Indigenous.Research@uwaterloo.ca with any questions.

Sustainability Integration in Curriculum Community of Practice sessions open

A message from the Sustainability Office.

The Sustainability Integration in Curriculum Community of Practice has opened registration for upcoming sessions this term.

Faculty members, instructors, and academic program and curriculum developers are encouraged to join to learn more about opportunities for integrating sustainability in practical ways throughout existing programs and courses.

• Mapping Sustainability Content in Curriculum (March 5, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in LIB 323): This session will explore approaches and experiences mapping sustainability content in existing courses and programs. It will highlight current institution-wide databases available and encourage participants to share how their units have identified current content in their own areas.
• Using the Campus as a Sustainability Living Lab(April 9, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in LIB 323): This session will explore ways to use the University of Waterloo as a learning tool for sustainability. The session will share perspectives from departments already using real-world campus challenges and opportunities to create assignments, case studies, or research projects, and what support is available to integrate this in other areas.

Any questions can be directed to the Sustainability Office (sustainability@uwaterloo.ca).

Waterloo's creator owned IP policy inspires shift for New Zealand's government

KA Imaging and HeMeTekx (logos pictured above) are examples of companies that have successfully leveraged WatCo’s services and Policy 73.

By Amy Carroll-Dee.

Waterloo’s creator-owned intellectual property (IP) policy, Policy 73, is a key differentiator for the University. Unlike most universities, Waterloo researchers inherently own what they invent which ensures that Waterloo attracts the most entrepreneurial faculty and students. It is also a major draw for industry partners.

Recently, the New Zealand Government announced that it will be implementing a similar model across its research institutions based on what it described as Waterloo’s very successful policy. In a government press release, Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins said, “The Government wants to reward and incentivise people in the industry and will therefore develop a national policy for managing Intellectual Property (IP) for science, innovation and technology-funded research. This will be based on the model used by Canada’s Waterloo University (sic), which vests ownership of IP with the researchers who create it.”

While Waterloo is proud to lead the way in empowering founders, Policy 73 does not exist in isolation. Waterloo Ventures acts as the University’s central unit for innovation, commercialization, entrepreneurship and related thought leadership and social impact. Through its work, Waterloo Ventures creates synergies across University activities to enable students, researchers, staff and founders to thrive in mobilizing ideas, knowledge, research and people toward impact. Waterloo Ventures provides support across the Waterloo ecosystem with technology transfer (WatCo), incubation and entrepreneurship training (Velocity). Additionally, the University also offers support through specialized incubators LiftOff (an affiliate) and Flint Hub, social impact creation (GreenHouse and the Grebel Peace Incubator), and thought leadership activities.

Speaking to New Zealand media outletnewsroom., Scott Inwood, Waterloo’s director of commercialization, stressed that all the pieces need to be in place to create a successful entrepreneurial research culture. “It’s important that the institutions have resources available, and quite often resources means access to government support in some way, shape or form,” said Inwood. “So beyond the resources that we represent as the commercialisation office, we have budgets for patent expenses, marketing … the support of mentors and advisors and resources of that nature.”

Read more about entrepreneurship at Waterloo

Notes as February fades to black

"University of Waterloo students are invited to the Future Cities Innovation Challenge, a two-week challenge to tackle pressing solutions such as housing, AI-driven city planning, sustainable infrastructure, and mobility—no experience needed!" says a note from Velocity. "With $20,000 in cash prizes up for grabs, participants will collaborate, gain mentorship from industry experts, and pitch their solutions for a chance to win funding and shape the future of resilient communities."

The Future Cities Innovation Challenge runs from March 10 to 21. Register now.

Calling all replicants: The Centre for Society, Technology and Values is hosting a movie screening of Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi noir film Blade Runner on Tuesday, March 4 at 6:30 p.m. (It's the "final cut" version of the film in case anyone is wondering). This free event will feature free popcorn and is open to all Waterloo faculty, staff and students. The screening will be followed by a discussion of the movie's relation to technology and society today. Join the conversation before all those moments are lost like tears in rain.

The University of Waterloo Staff Association (UWSA) has a guest blog post up for Black History Month. "When UWSA member Fungai Marowa (Integrated Planning and Budgeting) learned about the new UWaterloo institutional values, she noticed a striking resonance with the Ubuntu philosophy she grew up with in Zimbabwe," the staff association writes. "Fungai has generously shared her perspective on Ubuntu and its intersections with the University’s values in a blog post on the Staff Association website, which she hopes will “enhance our shared understanding of these values.”

“Ubuntu not only promotes the uplifting and establishment of all individuals,” Marowa writes, “but it also encourages active collaboration and cooperation from diverse groups of people…for the overall benefit and development of the community.” 

Read Marowa’s post, Ubuntu 101: Community, Integration, Collaboration, on the UWSA website.

Information Systems & Technology (IST) has published the latest in the Atlassian Blog Series entitledMastering Jira Issue Search: A Guide for Jira Users.