Future Skills Centre

Ryerson University is Canada’s leader in innovative, career-oriented education. Urban, culturally diverse and inclusive, it is home to more than 45,300 students, including 2,600 Master’s and PhD students, 3,800 faculty and staff, and nearly 198,000 alumni worldwide.

Ryerson draws upon significant expertise in running multidisciplinary and large-scale research and evaluation projects with partners across the country. With internal centres dedicated to better understanding and promoting diversity, entrepreneurship, and employment, the University also contributes invaluable experience to the Future Skills Centre by convening academics, governments, not-for-profits and industry to collaborate, create and disseminate new knowledge.

The Diversity Institute is a think and do tank, housed in Ryerson University, focused on advancing inclusive innovation and economic growth. With deep expertise in disruptive technologies, adoption strategies, and innovation processes, it has also focused on new approaches to understanding future skills and meeting employer needs by leveraging diversity and inclusion. Its pioneering work has led to significant changes in policy and practice, and its signature action research projects have developed new models to bridge the skills gap, particularly in the technology sector. The Diversity Institute has also helped develop and assess innovative technologies and tools to advance diversity and inclusion. More recently, it has spearheaded action research on entrepreneurship as a pathway to economic inclusion, and developed incubators focused on meeting the needs of specific populations, including youth facing barriers, women, and immigrants and refugees. Working with partners across sectors and around the world, the Diversity Institute leads the International Innovation and Inclusion Network (IIIN), linking more than 150 researchers, businesses, government and non-profits around the world to examine and share best practices who that will help support the work of the FSC-CCF.

Co-created by Ryerson University in partnership with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Magnet is a social innovation platform that addresses the unemployment and under-employment of Canadians. With its integration with Orbis Communications, it has a reach of over 1.1 million students, alumni and job seekers. By leveraging Magnet’s expansive reach, its technology-enabled network and partnerships with other leading platforms—including the Canada Job Bank and EMC’s ManufacturingGPS — the FSC-CCF will provide the purpose-built digital infrastructure to grow and sustain its pan-Canadian network. Magnet will further enable the FSC-CCF by deploying tools to collect information, assess needs, crowdsource knowledge, and share priorities across a broad range of collaborators, in both official languages.

Blueprint is a non-profit, mission-driven research organization dedicated to improving the social and economic well-being of individuals, families and communities. Working with partners across Canada; Blueprint designs and evaluates strategies to address complex public policy challenges. Their approach is guided by a deep understanding of client needs, informed by high-quality, rigorous analysis and grounded in their commitment to creating solutions that are credible to a wide range of stakeholders and work in the real world. Blueprint has deep expertise in workforce development and has worked with numerous government and non-profit partners to develop and test innovative skills development strategies.

Blueprint will draw on their extensive experience in program design, evaluation, policy analysis and advanced data analytics to lead the FSC-CCF evidence generation strategy and evaluation of FSC-CCF innovation projects.

The Conference Board of Canada is the country’s leading independent, not-for-profit, applied research organization. For more than 60 years, it has been bringing together people and ideas across disciplines and sectors to address complex issues. Through its trusted research in economic trends, public policy and organizational excellence, and its unparalleled connections, the Board empowers and inspires leaders to build a stronger future for all Canadians.

The Conference Board will leverage its applied research capacity, communications and convening expertise, and extensive pan-Canadian partnership network to lead the Future Skills Centre’s knowledge dissemination and mobilization activities. These activities will assist Canadians in making training decisions; prototype and test innovative approaches to identifying in-demand skills; and publicly and widely disseminate information and evidence on best practices and successful solutions.

The FSC-CCF is looking to partner with other organizations nationwide, and will share more information about opportunities soon. Please join the mailing list.