Mission – Centre for Scholarship in the Public Interest

The Centre for Scholarship in the Public Interest (CSPI) aims to foster research excellence in areas of pressing cultural, political, social, and ecological concern by exploring the consequences of human innovation and change, while providing opportunities for collaborative and transdisciplinary insight, critical and creative thinking, and meaningful public engagement to be integrated as core dimensions of academic pedagogy and practice in the 21st century.

CSPI is guided by a fundamental commitment to engaged scholarship and the deepening of publicly oriented values among university stakeholders and diverse publics beyond the university.

CSPI has two key objectives:

to build on the existing assets of McMaster University and promote high-calibre interdisciplinary research, public leadership, and intellectual engagement regarding issues of broad public relevance in an era marked by diminished social and educational investment;
to enhance the strengths of the McMaster community by supporting the public orientation of student and faculty scholarship through interdisciplinary curricular and pedagogical innovation as well as the development of mass mediated and digital communication networks within and beyond the university.

The Centre is concerned with bridging the connection between the university and larger social issues.