Overview

PRIMARY GOAL:

To be the premier health university in Canada

McMaster University is already a research intensive university with a history and culture of collaboration that attracts investigators interested in working across disciplinary boundaries. Innovation in education allows students to bridge the arts and sciences to pursue problem based learning in an atmosphere of inquiry focusing on complex issues facing society. To many, McMaster is seen as an optimal size to develop an interdisciplinary academic environment able to engage in answering the “big” health questions facing both the local community and the world.

KEY STRATEGIES:

To foster and publicize wide-ranging health-related activity at the University.

To address the “big” health questions through broad-based interdisciplinary collaborative teams that build on existing strengths.

McMaster hosts a wide range of initiatives in research and education, as well as many pockets of excellence in interdisciplinary health research and is consistently competitive in attracting health research funding. Known for many aspects of health research and education, McMaster is the “home” of evidence-based medicine, is a leader in both applied and basic science, is seen as a centre of strength in research methodology and has a history of reaching out to local and international communities to partner in health planning, intervention, evaluation and knowledge translation.  

THEMES:

Following the June 2005 Collaborations for Health Retreat, interdisciplinary health research interests expressed by members of the McMaster community clustered within four broad thematic areas: Health and the Environment, Health Services and Policy (subsequently renamed Health Systems to reflect the tripartite strengths in Health Services, Health Policy and Health Economics), Development Across the Lifespan, and Knowledge Translation.