Introduction
Our research and scholarship depend on new ideas, a deep connection to intellectual tradition, and the worlds we envision. Our datafied futures count, but so do our media, information and intellectual pasts. We draw on diverse theories and methods to inform our scholarship, opening them to revision, experiment and inclusion. Through faculty, post-doctoral and student recruitment, we seek to reflect multiple histories and ways of knowing, including Indigenous ways and perspectives from the global South. These principles are not new to FIMS, but action requires continuous thought and reflexive engagement with our intellectual legacies. FIMS seeks to be a campus and field leader in these areas of critical inquiry. Along with theoretical, empirical, applied and pedagogic scholarship, FIMS commits to multi-modality and research creation—experiments with scholarly form, critical thought and community-based research.
We will expand our research impact through internal support and participation in Tri-Council and other external research funding programs. We will increase our ability to share knowledge through research communications in partnership with faculty, students, and communications staff at FIMS and Western.
Relation to Western Strategic Plan: 2. Stimulate our research, scholarship and creative activity
Recent faculty publications (2022-2023)
Examples of ongoing research projects led by FIMS faculty
Selected Work in Progress
We have established The Starling Centre: Research for Just Technologies, Just Societies (2022-2027) as a place for original research, international comparison, policy development and community engagement in datafied society (Joanna Redden, Alison Hearn, Luke Stark, and Alissa Centivany, Co-Directors)
We continue our support for ongoing research projects and groups including Surviving Postwar Memory in El Salvador (Amanda Grzyb), Forest City Memories (Basil Chiasson), the SocioDigital Media Lab (Anabel Quan-Haase), the Language & Information Technology Research Lab (Victoria Rubin), and the Practitioner Media Lab (Sarah Smith) with funding opportunities, campus space, and research time
FIMS is co-developing two community-based projects at the University’s planned site in London’s downtown core: the Community Studio and Video Commons (FIMS) and the Community Engaged Learning (CEL) Hub (FIMS, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Don Wright Faculty of Music, and Student Experience Office at Western). Both will support non-traditional research activities and community engagement beginning in 2024-25
Looking Ahead We Will
Continue to expand Tri-Council, Foundation and other external participation among new and established faculty through access to regular workshops and collaborations, especially in support of FIMS graduate funding and training
Enrich and promote internal research funding programs beyond their 3-year pilots (initiated in 2019), including FIMS Initiatives for Public Facing Scholarship and Creative Work, Grants for Editorial Support, and Project Completion Grants
Continue to appoint post-doctoral scholars through Western’s Postdoctoral Scholars Program
Welcome international scholars. Over the last decade we’ve welcomed visiting faculty, post-doctoral scholars and graduate student researchers from El Salvador, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Nigeria, Brazil and South Africa, and a Scholar at Risk from Afghanistan in 2022