Research & Innovation

Research thrives on exploring the unknown, pushing boundaries, and transforming new ideas into discovery and innovation. To support this work, institutions must continually evolve their technology, infrastructure, and services while navigating the realities of security, sustainability, and resource constraints.

This track invites researchers, IT professionals, and others who support research to share how they are enabling research within these real-world constraints. We encourage presentations that highlight successful collaborations, innovative solutions, lessons learned, and the challenges of supporting research at scale.

Join us to explore the insights, experiences, and forward-thinking approaches that are advancing research excellence and accelerating innovation across our institutions.

Target Audience

This track is designed for practitioners and leaders at all levels who support and enable research, including researchers, librarians, system implementers, technical specialists, analysts, research computing professionals, IT administrators, and institutional leaders. It is intended for those involved in research IT, advanced research computing, research technology platforms, and the planning, delivery, and management of research infrastructure and support services.

Focus Areas

• Research Data Management, Sovereignty & Compliance: Granting agency requirements, research data deposit mandates, data sovereignty, Indigenous data sovereignty, data stewardship, and long-term preservation strategies.
• Research Security, Privacy & Trusted Collaboration: Research security, cross-border data considerations, secure research environments, post-quantum security, and balancing security requirements with collaborative research.
• AI in Research: Responsible and ethical AI, governance and transparency, contractual and funding-related AI requirements, and the application of AI to accelerate research outcomes.
• Research Computing Infrastructure & Emerging Technologies: Advanced research computing, cloud computing for research workloads, quantum computing, scalable architectures, and the evolution of research technology platforms.
• Data Storage, Migration & Lifecycle Management: Storage tiering, archival strategies, large-scale data repositories, platform migrations, and sustainable approaches to managing research data growth.
• Automation, Reproducibility & Research Workflows: Automated and scalable workflows, reproducible research practices, and technologies that improve research efficiency and reliability.
• Research Collaboration & Partnerships: Inter-institutional research initiatives, data-sharing challenges, industry partnerships, cross-sector collaborations, and enabling multi-institutional research.
• Sustainable Research Technology & Funding Models: Innovative procurement approaches, funding strategies, maximizing value in constrained environments, and doing more with limited resources.
• National Research Infrastructure & Ecosystem Updates: Updates from the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, national DRI initiatives, and developments shaping Canada's research computing landscape.