Research and Foresight support the growth, innovation, and transformation of the Ontario postsecondary education sector to further digital-by-design educational futures.
Research and Foresight supports organizational and sector capacity in three key areas:
Understanding the landscape
for impact and change
Identifying insights for
transformation
Disseminating knowledge
for strategic action
Capacity Building for Innovation and
Digital Transformation (Dx)
Understand the postsecondary education landscape for impact and change
We collect data and information.
Lead research activities that reflect member institutions’ needs and priorities as they enable Digital Transformation throughout their programs and services.
Identify insights for Digital Transformation
We identify new opportunities.
Support the understanding and use of complex datasets and emerging trends to enact Digital Transformation across Ontario’s postsecondary institutions.
Support strategic action
We explore the futures of postsecondary education.
Help leaders and innovators in Ontario’s postsecondary sector navigate Digital Transformation for informed and future oriented decision making.
Foresight Reports
Foresight reports are tools to support the navigation of uncertain and complex futures. Foresight helps inform present day decision making by identifying patterns of change that may have significant lasting impacts for the futures of higher education. These tools can be used to help you engage in strategic action to enable Digital Transformation and build Dx capacity at your institution.
2021–2022
Collection 1: The Virtual Learning Landscape Ahead
2022–2023
Collection 2: Expanding the Scope of Postsecondary Education
2023-2024
Collection 3: Improving Flexibility in Postsecondary Education
2024
Thinking about the long-term future can be difficult because it is too abstract or too ambiguous. However, it is critical to engage in long-term thinking exercises, since the choices we make today will shape the futures that are possible. To support that long-term thinking capacity, the Research and Foresight team at eCampusOntario have designed artifacts from the future of higher education. Artifacts from the future are imaginary objects designed by extrapolating possibilities from the patterns of change we see today. They are created to give a “tangible” experience of what a possible future could be like.
2025
Innovations in Ontario Post-Secondary Education
The technological, societal, and environmental changes that are building globally right now will impact Ontario’s postsecondary education sector requiring innovation in the sector and beyond.
When we look forward, it is important to remember where we came from, to learn and build on the successes of the past. With this concept in mind, eCampusOntario has created a timeline to highlight the sector’s capacity to evolve with a sample of innovations over the last 60 years to inspire the sector to continue to build on its previous successes. This is a short selection of examples chosen to represent the breadth of innovation over the years as well as its distribution across the province and throughout Ontario’s post secondary education sector.
2025
Designing the Futures of Higher Education
There is an increased demand for flexibility and debate about the perceived value of higher education. How might these factors play out in the future?
Delivered as an online workshop at eCampusOntario’s 2024 Technology and Education Seminar and Showcase (TESS), the presentation uses strategic foresight to explore different ways flexibility and value of higher education might look in the future. As a 2025 addition to this project, four fictional scenarios have been developed as a tool for further exploration. This work builds on our previous research on flexibility in Ontario’s higher education sector (above).
2025
TESS 2024: Understanding Our Past to Create Visions of Our Future
What can we learn from our past to help build our futures? Delivered at eCampusOntario’s 2024 Technology and Education Seminar and Showcase (TESS), this presentation explores the past for insight about possible futures of higher education.
Why tell the story of the past, present and future? To expand the range of what is possible. When we try to solve problems, particularly complex problems, our range of possible solutions is framed by the stories we tell about the past, present and future. The broader and more explicit our stories of the past, present and future is, the greater the range of possible solutions.
What topics do you want to
know more about?
