The University of Waterloo’s Future Cities Institute (FCI) founded by CAIVAN brings together a global network of interdisciplinary researchers from a variety of fields, industry leaders, practitioners, students and community members to develop new tools and approaches for building healthy and prosperous cities.
Help shape the Vision 1 Million Scorecard
We’re working to make the BestWR Vision 1 Million Scorecard a powerful tool for understanding how ready our region is for a population of one million. We need your insights on critical areas like housing, transportation, health, employment, and livability; where are we prepared, and where do we need to improve?
Your feedback is confidential and will directly inform updates to the scorecard. Thank you for helping us build a better, more resilient future.
Fostering – We promote the integration of research, teaching, and knowledge mobilization to drive innovative city and community solutions.
Healthy – We embrace a One Health approach, recognizing the interconnectedness of human, environmental, and planetary well-being.
Prosperous – We create the conditions for communities to thrive socially and economically by fostering employment, innovation, education, and inclusive growth that benefits citizens.
Future – We explore multiple plausible futures, not just preferred ones, ensuring adaptable and resilient city and community strategies.
Cities and Communities – We engage with municipalities and Indigenous communities to collaboratively shape sustainable development.
News
FCI Co-op Sprint: Tools for Northern Communities
Ten FCI co-op students from across disciplines spent a week in focused sprint working on two tools designed to support Northern communities: one for grant writing, one for community economic development planning. The work addressed real administrative and capacity gaps that smaller Northern municipalities face, and the cross-disciplinary makeup of the team brought a range of perspectives to problems that benefit from exactly that kind of scrutiny.
BUILD NOW Design Charrette: 60 Planning Students, One Working Session
FCI brought over 60 planning students together with the BUILD NOW: Waterloo Region leadership team for a hands-on design charrette focused on Canada's largest affordable home ownership initiative. Students pressure-tested real concepts and offered grounded feedback, many as members of the very demographic BUILD NOW is designed to serve. A strong example of what academia and industry can produce when they work in the same room, toward the same problem.
BUILD NOW Design Charrette: Watch the Session
This video recap of FCI's BUILD NOW design charrette features Philip Mills and Scott Higgins on what it meant to have students as genuine collaborators, and FCI Director Dr. Leia Minaker on why applied, grounded engagement sits at the core of FCI's work. Over 60 planning students, many of them the demographic BUILD NOW is designed to serve, brought real ideas and challenged assumptions in a working session with the BUILD NOW: Waterloo Region leadership team.
