The University of Waterloo (UW) and St. George’s University (SGU) will provide students in the program with an educational pathway to medical training. The program enables graduates to earn both a Bachelor of Medical Sciences degree from UW and a Doctor of Medicine degree from SGU. Students admitted to both institutions can begin with two years of foundational science and experiential learning at UW, followed by medical education and clinical training at SGU.

The Biomedical Engineering PhD and MASc programs, which will be four and two years in duration, respectively, include new and existing courses that will engage students in the acquisition of high-level technical knowledge and methods. The program is research-focused in biomedical engineering, with complementary emphases on professional engineering and design practice. In addition to an independent thesis, students will develop professional and transferable skills in modules for milestone-based activities in the proposed Professional Attributes and Competence Enhancement (PACE) Module. The program will include a strong model of engaged thesis advisers forming active interdisciplinary advisory and examination committees.

This Type II interdisciplinary graduate diploma in Climate Change builds on existing disciplinary strengths to train graduates from any Faculty to go beyond the context of their own academic-professional concentrations to broadly engage with the whole-of-society climate change solutions from community to global scales.

The Future Cities Master’s program is designed to provide early- and mid-career professionals with competency in futures and systems thinking and foresight methods that can be used to better address the significant challenges of today while anticipating and generating innovative and sustainable options for uncertain and increasingly complex futures in the context of cities. This course-based program includes nine courses predominantly online, with in-person block and hybrid delivery formats, including required courses in cities, sustainability, future studies, and a capstone course. The program can be completed either full-time (three terms) or part-time (six – eight terms). The program is regular only with no co-op, and no formal internship, although the applied capstone is required.  The traditional approaches to studying, planning, managing, and visioning our cities are arguably struggling to address our challenges today and lacks the capacity to critically explore and develop alternatives for a future city.  There is need to move beyond the silos within cities and disciplinary boundaries to foster multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary thinking applied to urban challenges and futures. Graduates will be well-equipped to work in interdisciplinary settings, to create innovative strategies and solutions for complex current and future challenges facing cities.

The PhD program in Entrepreneurship and Organization will train students to conduct independent scientific research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and Organizations. This program builds on the fundamental theoretical foundations of the micro, macro and meso entrepreneurship, organizational behaviour, and strategy literature. It will enable students to develop deep expertise in these domains and apply that expertise in the rigorous study of
entrepreneurial behaviour and entrepreneurial contexts. The program will include coursework, a comprehensive examination, a thesis proposal, and a thesis.

The Bachelor of Sustainability and Financial Management (BSFM) is offered jointly by the School of Accounting and Finance in the Faculty of Arts and the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development in the Faculty of Environment. The program leverages existing courses from both faculties and new co-created courses focused on the joint discipline of sustainability and financial management. The program is based on an interdisciplinary approach, utilizing team and problem-based pedagogies. Students will receive foundational training in accounting, finance and sustainability, which they will leverage in an integrated framework to critically address “wicked problems” facing business and society such as climate change, water security, biodiversity protection, and inclusion and equality. Students will acquire critical leadership, followership, communication, and collaboration competencies as they work in diverse teams on real-world problems, developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills and the confidence to make decisions in abstract contexts with imperfect information. The program has a strong focus on enabling informed decision-making via data analytics, training data-savvy graduates who can engage in predictive analytics and statistical methods to interpret and better understand the sustainability-related impacts of decision making.

Responding to climate change requires the help of professionals who understand its impact on resource availability/scarcity (e.g. water, food), and who can respond to environmental degradation (e.g. flooding, wildfires, biodiversity loss, ecosystem change), mass human migration, and the need to develop sustainable energy solutions. Professionals are needed who can find solutions to problems that lie at the interface of natural and human environmental systems. The BSc in Climate and Environmental Change will equip students with a scientific understanding of the challenges facing our planet’s environment and will enable them to be capable of finding and deploying technical and management strategies to respond to these challenges.

The Type 3 Graduate Diploma in Data Analytics (GDDA) is designed to provide students with rich learning outcomes that include deep quantitative skills and technical expertise. These competencies will position students to achieve a variety of professional opportunities, including supporting organizations in the effective utilization of data.  Specifically, the GDDA: i) offers graduate-level, course-work based, professional education in the emerging area of data analytics, and ii) provides a preliminary foundation for students who plan to do applied research in data analytics or pursue further graduate studies.

The PhD in Political Science is a new research program that will integrate rigorous requirements and training consistent with disciplinary norms while offering innovative features, flexibility, and professional development designed to prepare students for both traditional academic careers and non-academic career paths. The program features a set of distinctive elements, including a set of mandatory professional development seminars. On top of the regular academic program, students can take an experiential option (students can take a co-op or pursue internship opportunities through organizations like Mitacs or other placements, and will receive additional professional training in non-academic career development) and a teaching option (including in-department mentorship in teaching and additional professional development in teaching out of the Centre for Teaching Excellence). Course work will provide advanced training in the discipline with the ability to apply the knowledge and skills acquired to myriad political and policy problems. The program culminates with a capstone project in the form of a traditional dissertation or tailored format beyond that of the traditional monograph.

The B.A. in Communication Arts and Design Practice aims to integrate critically informed creative design practices with theoretical analysis of multimodal forms of representation and public processes of meaning-making. The Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo offers an ideal site for the analysis, investigation, and interrogation of the relationship between embodied theories of communication and different forms of creative production. Our faculty pursue distinct and overlapping areas of research and creative activity in the areas of digital arts communication, performance theory and practice, and communication as a process of communal and public meaning-making. Existing faculty expertise in related research, creative work, and pedagogical practices support this plan through foregrounding the demands and possibilities of designing communication texts, visual representations, as well as embodied and mediated performances in a variety of public settings. The plan understands “Communication Arts” as studying modes of digital media production, performance, and personal as well as public communication; while “design practice” refers to the making of experimental, working models of ideas, objects, systems, and processes that help us imagine and achieve more productive forms of relationality among people, places, and things. As a communication arts program, students will work in the full range of material, digital, and performative media. This academic plan is committed to rigorous theoretically-informed practice; project-based, interdisciplinary and collaborative pedagogy; and experiential learning.

The Graduate Diploma in Computational Data Analytics for the Social Sciences and Humanities (CDASH) is intended to provide Arts students advanced training in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence methods of analysis. Big Data refers to large volumes of data that can be measured in terabytes. The availability of such massive datasets has created a strong demand for students who can skillfully scrape, collect, aggregate and analyze large information sets through advanced statistical methods in a meaningful manner and deliver key insights. CDASH is intended to train students in these skills and use behavioral theories that are required to interpret and understand collective behavior and choices made by individuals. This training will produce students who are well versed on how to assess societal impacts of massive data collection, associated privacy issues, election manipulation, and appropriate government policy. This is critical given current public concerns on such issues.

The Master of Pharmacy in Advanced Pharmacy Practice (MPharm) will address a need for advanced pharmacist practitioners who have the expert knowledge to manage complex patients or complex drug therapy in specialized patient populations.  The program consists of didactic coursework, experiential education and a required research paper.  Required courses include advanced principles of medication management, critical appraisal, physical assessment, clinical research methods and statistics.   Students must complete a clinical practicum consisting of 750 hours of experiential education in a health care setting with the clinical experiences tailored to the career goals of the student.  In addition, students will conduct a non-thesis research project addressing an important issue related to medication use or clinical practice.  This includes study design, data collection, data analysis and preparation of a research paper.   Graduates of the program will be prepared to serve as medication experts in the provision of health care, educators in the classroom and clinical setting, and researchers contributing to generation and transfer of knowledge related to the optimal use of medications.

The Master of Mathematics in Data Science (DS) is a new thesis-based Master’s program in the Faculty of Mathematics, in which students work on a Data Science-related topic with a research supervisor in the field of DS. This program is designed to strategically leverage the breadth and depth of research that currently exists in the Faculty of Mathematics in the field of DS. It does so by offering an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to Data Science that can be best achieved with the three supporting academic units, namely the Cheriton School of Computer Science, the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, and the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science. Because of this unique and high-quality training, graduates of this program is anticipated to be in high demand, capable of conducting research in industry or academia within Canada and abroad upon graduation. This program aims to integrate knowledge from computer science, statistics, and optimization, develop expertise in the field of Data Science, and enable the development of original research.  In addition, the research program strives to achieve a thorough understanding of the existing methods and techniques used in Data Science, and adapt them to create new and improved solutions.

The Master of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MDSAI) is a new coursework program in the Faculty of Mathematics that will address growing provincial, national, and global needs in the fields of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.  It is offered jointly by the Cheriton School of Computer Science, the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, and the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science. The program is based on an interdisciplinary approach, recognizing the importance of computer science, statistics, and optimization in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. It is structured as a three-term academic coursework program with normally a one co-op option. The main objectives of this program are to provide strong core training so that graduates can adapt easily to changes and new demands from industry; enable students to understand not only how to apply certain methods, but when and why they are appropriate, and expose students to real-world problems in the classroom and through experiential learning.

The Graduate Diploma in Climate Risk Management is designed to meet the needs of early to mid-career professionals who have been tasked with climate change risk management and leadership as part of their professional duties. The Diploma provides graduates interdisciplinary skills to put the latest academic research and climate change strategies into practice for real-world impact in multiple professions. Graduates will achieve competence in the science of climate change, the risks and opportunities posed by a changing climate, and global and national policies and strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

In-depth applied knowledge and skills will also be developed in three of the following areas of climate risk management practice: accessing and interpreting climate data and scenarios (climate analytics); incorporating climate change into business decisions and reporting; managing climate risk as part of professional planning; and greenhouse gas accounting and management.

The Graduate Diploma in Climate Risk Management is a fully on-line program to facilitate upskilling of employed professionals who are not in a position to take a full year leave for a more comprehensive on campus degree program. It is offered on a part-time basis only. Four courses are required for completion. Students complete up to two courses per term of registration.

The PhD in Sustainability Management will be the flagship degree program of School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) and it will contribute to advancing scholarly knowledge and training on sustainability management in an integrated manner. It will prepare PhD students for a host of career paths making them fully trained for careers within and outside the academia, including research, policy and practice oriented careers with government and non-government organizations. Given its interdisciplinary nature, the program will appeal to Canadian and international students from a broad range of master’s programs in management, the social sciences, applied sciences, engineering and others, which address the role of for-profit, government and third sector organizations in realizing and managing sustainability goals through innovative approaches in both developed and developing economies.

The program is oriented towards those students who want to pursue a PhD on a full time basis and who are interested in applied research based careers in academia, public policy, and business. This PhD degree will add to the existing graduate program offerings in SEED. In particular, it will complement the existing research based master’s program in Sustainability Management (MES). The proposed program will enhance research skills, and develop scholarly knowledge, methods and tools through course work and research in sustainability management.

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the University of Waterloo in collaboration with its School of Architecture will offer a  new BASc in Architectural Engineering to meet the large current and future demand for engineers technically-skilled in the whole scope of building design, construction, assessment, repair, and refurbishment. Graduates from this program will have the enhanced design, communication, and collaboration skills alongside the strong analytical skills that engineering students at UW currently acquire.

This one-of-a-kind CEAB-approved co-operative program has “Design from Day One” as its mantra. A common Architectural Engineering class held in a studio setting will underpin each term and will help knit together topics such as design, aesthetics, culture, environment, and professionalism in the context of engineered buildings.  A studio learning experience, common in design-centric programs such as Architecture and Industrial Design, allows for enhanced peer-learning, better collaborative work, inspiration from surroundings, rapid modelling and prototyping, while encouraging hands-on investigations and exploration.

This program has the potential to profoundly impact the building industry, by producing graduates with broad, yet technically deep, skills capable of responding to the unique and emerging challenges currently confronting the building industry.

The Graduate Diploma in Data Analytics (GDDA) is designed to provide students with deep quantitative skills and technical expertise to enable them to help organizations reap the most benefit from big data and to create competitive advantage in today’s highly competitive world. The GDDA’s broad academic and institutional objectives are to 1) offer graduate-level professional education in the emerging area of data analytics; 2) attract professionals and managers at all levels of organizations and across different industries, as well as students who are eager to learn and deepen their analytics skills 3) provide a foundation for students who plan to do applied research in data analytics.

The GDDA aims to enable students to enhance traditional descriptive analytics of explaining what has happened with predictive analytics to foresee what will happen under various future scenarios, and with prescriptive analytics to design best policies and actions under all circumstances. Predictive and prescriptive analytics enable organizations to transform insight into foresight and most importantly make transformative decisions to significantly improve business performance.

The PhD program in Applied Philosophy is a new research program that will involve the completion of course work, a prospectus and a dissertation project. The program will include a significant experiential learning component. The most distinctive feature will be the Applied Research Placement – a two-term activity in which one term is spent doing research and the other involves confronting a practical problem in a placement with a host organization. The goals of the placement are for the students to gain experience in bridging the theoretical and practical aspects of their research areas and to provide the student unique training relevant to both non-academic employers and academic in philosophy. The program also includes courses specifically tailored to train students in application of philosophy to practical problems and the possibility of dissertation projects taking forms beyond that of the traditional monograph.

The program was subsequently closed

The Graduate Diploma in Planning will be an on-line, course-based, professional program primarily for practicing planners and related professions. The Diploma is intended to attract students interested in expanding and updating their knowledge, enhancing their employment flexibility and generating opportunities for advancement. The proposed program is for-credit, offered to domestic and international students. The on-line offering of the proposed program allows practitioners with busy schedules to participate and to count their course work as part of their continuing professional education requirements. The program will normally be offered only for part-time study.

The Biomedical Engineering program is unique in Canada due to its strong focus on the modeling and design of biomedical systems that will be used to develop new technologies and engineering solutions to health-related problems. The curriculum of this co-operative program will emphasize design and interdisciplinarity, and will incorporate biomedical content starting in the first year of enrollment and culminating in a fourth year biomedical design project course. The curriculum is geared towards three theme areas of bio-signals and imaging, bio-mechanics and sports engineering, and bio-devices.

The program’s objective is to graduate engineers with the technical skills required to model complex biomedical systems, interpret biomedical experimental results, and design and develop innovative technologies in close collaboration with the medical community. Graduates will be ideally suited to contribute directly to the Canadian biomedical and health economy, but with a solid, well-rounded education that will allow for a wide range of career possibilities.

The objective of the Integrated Water Management program is to provide students with a broad, multi‐disciplinary foundation in water science and engineering, technology and management. Students will gain discipline expertise from their parent departments. The parent and collaborative programs combined will provide master’s and PhD students with a specialist area of focus and level of understanding of other water-related disciplines such that they can be effective in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary settings and will prepare:

1. master’s students for the workforce or further graduate study and research leading toward a PhD, or
2. PhD students for a career as scholars, researchers or practitioners.

The interdisciplinary objective of the collaborative program will be achieved through successful completion of one graduate course on the key principles, concepts, tools and terminology of multiple water-related disciplines covering science and engineering, technology and management aspects and one course where students work in teams to address water issues from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The MCC program in Master of Climate Change is a specialized, course-based (non-thesis) program that would be completed over a period of three terms (12 months) of full-time studies. This program is designed with the flexibility to meet the needs of recent graduates who endeavour to become part of the first generation of climate change professionals by building on their undergraduate degree with climate change specific training and experience. This program will also be of interest to mid-career professionals looking to upgrade their current knowledge and skills to take on the challenges climate change poses to their field or retrain for new employment opportunities created by climate change. The MCC will be an on-campus, classroom-based program at the outset. Later, the intention is to develop e-learning opportunities to offer a blended learning environment to better support professionals wanting to upgrade their skills through part part-time enrolment and distance education