Founded in 1908, the University of Alberta is one of Canada’s top universities and among the world’s leading public research-intensive universities, with a reputation for excellence across the sciences, agriculture and forestry, engineering, health sciences, business, humanities and social sciences. The University of Alberta’s 18 faculties, delivering 200+ undergraduate programs and 500+ graduate programs, are housed mainly within three multidisciplinary Colleges: Health Sciences, Natural and Applied Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities. The University of Alberta boasts over 40,000 students from 156 countries and attracts more than $600 million in annual research funding.
Since its inception more than 115 years ago, University of Alberta’s vision has been to be one of the world’s great universities for the public good. This university is dedicated to the promise made by founding president Henry Marshal Tory that “…knowledge shall not be the concern of scholars alone. The uplifting of the whole people shall be its final goal.” This vision endures as the university strives to improve the lives of people in Alberta, across Canada, and around the world.
The University of Alberta has mapped out a five-year strategy to maximize the impact of its research and innovation in solving pressing challenges at every level from local to global. Forward with Purpose: A Strategic Plan for Research and Innovation declares the university’s ambition to be a leader in knowledge generation and translation, inspiring solutions to grand challenges of local, provincial, national and global importance through creativity, research, innovation and higher education. The research and innovation strategy highlights three areas in which the university has demonstrated sustained global excellence: energy and environment, artificial intelligence, and health and well-being. It also identifies three areas in which the university is primed for growth: Indigenous research, agriculture and food, and social transformations. These focus areas align directly with the U of A’s overarching institutional plan, Shape: A Strategic Plan of Impact.
