Mitacs and the University of King's College are today (Aug 16) announcing their new partnership, which aims to boost important research in the humanities and social sciences across Nova Scotia and beyond.
The partnership is a natural fit, bringing together a top Canadian university known for the exceptional standard of education it offers in the humanities, social sciences, and journalism, with a not-for-profit focused on connecting highly skilled post-secondary talent with organizations in need of expanded research, strategy, and innovation capacity.
The new agreement will deploy more humanities, social sciences, and journalism expertise into Nova Scotia's economy, enable local organizations to tap into invaluable insights on human behaviour, and provide highly skilled post-secondary students and recent graduates with real-world experience and opportunities in their fields.
The social sciences include critical focus areas like economics, psychology, political science, and sociology, while the humanities centre around history, philosophy, and languages. Research in these disciplines can support businesses in unique and valuable ways, as can the storytelling talent that students develop in King's School of Journalism, Writing & Publishing.
In-depth education on human behaviour enables humanities practitioners, social scientists and journalists to provide specialized analysis and important insights on many aspects of an organization, from workplace dynamics to productivity to market intelligence. They can also design and implement strategies to help teams adapt to change, forecast trends, and tell compelling stories.
As a result of the new Mitacs-King's partnership, a broad range of organizations from hospitals to small businesses to municipalities are now able to access post-secondary talent with deep knowledge and experience in these areas.
At the same time, the partnership is providing King's students and recent graduates with opportunities to build their experience, grow their networks, explore career paths where their skills are in high demand, and meaningfully contribute to finding solutions to pressing world problems by participating in Mitacs internships.
Internships are cost-shared between Mitacs and host organizations, thanks to the support of Mitacs's federal and provincial funding partners. Through these collaborative, work-integrated learning programs, highly skilled journalists, writers, historians, and other analytical thinkers from King's will plug into host organizations and apply their expertise to help companies solve challenges, improve operations, innovate, and grow.
Quotes:
"The fields of humanities and social sciences are invaluable to our well-being, economic growth, and societal progress. Through this new partnership with the University of King's College, organizations can access the expertise of top students and recent grads who are highly trained in social sciences and humanities and the solutions their research makes possible more easily and affordably. I'm delighted that Mitacs is helping to deploy the incredible talent coming out of King's into Nova Scotia's economy, where they can make their impact."
- John Hepburn, Chief Executive Officer, Mitacs
"This partnership with Mitacs is confirmation that King's graduates offer skills in high demand across a broad range of sectors. These include their ability to ask different questions, to contribute to creative problem-solving and to apply their emotional intelligence. Starting with our renowned Foundation Year Program, King's nurtures these aptitudes throughout our programs in the humanities and journalism, and our graduates enter the world with an unparalleled ability to draw insight, articulate meaning, and make empathy matter. This partnership presents a truly exciting opportunity for King's graduates and for businesses and organizations in and beyond Nova Scotia."
- William Lahey, President, Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Law, University of King's College
Quick facts:
- Mitacs is a national not-for-profit organization with a mandate to drive Canadian innovation by solving business challenges with academic research solutions.
- Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada along with the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of New Brunswick, Innovation PEI, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Ontario, Research Manitoba, the Government of Saskatchewan, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, and the Government of Yukon.
