Mission

The CICAS mission is to facilitate partnerships across academic, cultural, professional, and community divides, but also to mobilize knowledge across disciplinary boundaries as a means of fostering a new generation of informed, ethical, and strategic leaders who will foster critical literacy and education in both the public and private sectors.

Mandate

1. To provide an intellectual, innovative base for connecting with scholars locally, nationally, and worldwide.
2. To cultivate trans-disciplinary, local, and international research at Nipissing University.
3. To combine new models of knowledge interfacing and digital interaction with leading-edge research that connects creative pedagogy with critical inquiry, but also mobilizes critical inquiry and research across cultural and economic divides.
4. To shed light on disciplinary commonalities without diluting individual disciplines.
5. To encourage creative approaches to pedagogy and learning.
6. To emphasize diversity and equality.
7. To foster a new generation of undergraduate and graduate student researchers.

Immediate Objectives

• Workshops, Seminars, and Talk Series
  Workshops, seminars, and talk series are organized around specific themes and goals. These include research in pedagogy and pedagogical innovation. An essential part of this initiative is also community outreach.
• Symposium
  The centre’s international symposia will be held annually (see more details for annual themes and calls for papers).
• Grant Applications
  The centre’s mandate is to pursue Tri-Council and international grants and thus encourage collaborative research and networking among scholars at Nipissing and beyond.

Long-Term Objectives

However, the role of the centre is not limited to the pursuit of Tri-Council grants only.

As specified in the objectives below, the centre’s role is to remain a crucial research hub in the region whose function, however, will not be limited to Canadian collaborative networks.

The Centre has 7 long-term objectives:

1. To create strategic partnerships and research clusters that stem from both within and outside the university in order to establish a research base for Nipissing scholars to share their pursuit of knowledge and critical inquiry. These partnerships will also facilitate applying for national, Tri-Council, and international grants via research partnerships with regional, national, and international scholars and professionals.
2. To oversee and liaise research-based initiatives that encourage inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary lines of inquiry, combining specialization with collaborative communication and digital mobilization of knowledge on the local, provincial, federal, and international level.
3. To engage NU graduate and undergraduate students in the centre’s initiatives and thus foster a new generation of innovative young scholars.
4. To establish local, inter-city, as well as international research partnerships that foster the importance of community outreach, collaborative networking, creative innovation, and ethical dialogue.
5. To position Nipissing as a strategic, research-driven player in the rise of the digital age university.
6. To encourage research output and publish annual proceedings stemming from the centre’s initiatives.
7. To serve as a strategic research hub for the Near North and beyond.