Research and Innovation
Committed to excellence in research based on the highest standards
As a new university UNF is ensuring that all our academic programs are both aligned with regional, national, and international labour needs and skills gaps, while also ensuring that our program content is underpinned by current and credible research and scholarship.
We support the notion that education and research are self-enforcing, each in turn making the other stronger and more applicable. A such, all our academic faculty are required to be engaged with active research and scholarship in their academic discipline.
The Digital Mindset
The university has adopted an emphasis on Digital Mindset, defined as a set of attributes that enable an individual to engender positive change in a progressively more digital world.
Digital Transformation is a term coined to encompass the massive efforts underway in society and business to replace analog or manual processes with digital processes or upgrading current digital processes. It is not just technology, but the cultural, organizational, and operational changes brought about by the integration of smart technologies. It is seen as a key to sustaining innovation and requires specific skills and mindset.
Current research areas
The area of Digital Transformation covers a very wide range of research options or areas, all of which are crucial to the modern innovative and technology-driven working environment.
Current research questions include:
- How do organizational design and actions support a smooth transition to digital value creation methods?
- What alternative approaches to the study of firms and their improvements when facing the needs of the digital economy can be undertaken and what new theories emerge?
- When and why is it an advantage/disadvantage to start digital transformation in a new organization which is completely independent from traditional business, as suggested by technological disruption research?
- Under what circumstances and why do spill-over-effects to the parent organization happen/not happen?
Student engagement in research
All UNF programs are designed and developed to contain multiple industry case studies that are used to demonstrate how established techniques of research and inquiry are used. Students are required to analyze, research, and critique throughout the program.
All graduate-level programs culminate with two courses specifically designed to examine cases/challenges to deepen understanding in a particular field. The final capstone course follows a regular project schedule e.g., topic selection and team formation, proposal and project planning, literature review, methods, data collection, analysis and finally, reporting and defence.
The Undergraduate Research Program (URP), as an elective course within all of our undergraduate programs, is an opportunity for undergraduate students to participate in faculty-led research projects beginning as early as Year Two.
Research ethics
The university endorses and complies with the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (2021) and the principles, guidelines and processes as set out in Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (2022) and the Canadian Council on Animal Care’s policy on Ethics of Animal Investigation.
UNF research must also comply with relevant privacy legislation in the jurisdiction where participation in research takes place such as the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) and the Personal Information and Protection and Electronic Documents Acts (PIPEDA) of Canada, regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. All researchers must obtain prior written approval from the UNF Research Ethics Board (REB) prior to conducting any research involving living human participants or animals, subject to the exceptions outlined in the Tri-Council Policy Statement. The REB is convened by and reports to UNF’s Academic Council.
