| Interdisciplinarity and diversity are the future of innovative science and engineering research teams taking part in partnerships between universities and public / private organizations. Both university and industrial leaders are actively looking for qualified individuals to take full advantage of interdisciplinarity within their teams, in order to think outside the box and tackle problems in innovative ways. Diversity also infuses academic networks with innate creative potential, where groups with a range of perspectives consistently outperform groups of like-minded individuals. |
| OPSIDIAN (Optimizing Power Skills in Interdisciplinary, Diverse & Innovative Academic Networks) is an autonomous training, applicable to all fields of science, engineering and beyond. |
| It is a unique training model: it recognizes the strategic importance of skills aimed at optimizing the dynamics of diverse and interdisciplinary teams, in order to exploit their full creative potential. |
| This innovative approach to cross-training is unique in Canada and the first of its kind in the history of the CREATE / NSERC grant program. OPSIDIAN addresses both scientific diversity (intersectorality), resulting from different academic training, and identity diversity (intersectionality), which combine into a diversity of perspectives suitable for optimizing creativity and innovation. |
