Development of the Plan

The process to develop Shaping UBC’s Next Century was aligned with UBC’s engagement principles, which ensure clarity and transparency in how we define, design, implement and conclude public engagement in our community planning processes. The principles were created through consultation with a wide range of partners including campus stakeholders, student government and members of various First Nations communities.

First steps into UBC’s future

In December 2016, more than 1,000 people responded to an online survey sharing their initial thoughts on UBC’s future. A steering committee, which included UBC faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members, then considered the input and proposed a series of draft priorities for the plan. We invited feedback on these priorities through a series of open house events and an additional online survey in March and April, 2017. Summaries of what we heard from the 7,500 community members who responded to our survey and 350 community members who attended an open house are available below.

Throughout summer 2017, deans, the Executive and other university leaders further explored the draft priorities, and articulated them within an overarching framework, reflecting UBC’s core mandate of excellence in learning and research. We then developed a draft vision statement that sought to capture the aspiration, intent and pride woven into the responses received through consultation.

Representative working groups were established to provide recommendations to the steering committee, deans and the Executive to form the basis of the draft strategic plan. Details of the working group membership can be found here: Strategic Planning Process Working Groups (PDF).

During the fall of 2017, we invited faculty, staff, students and alumni to join us in a further dialogue around the emerging plan via open houses and an online survey.

Andrew Szeri (former Provost and Vice-President, Academic, UBC Vancouver) and Gail Murphy (Vice-President, Research and Innovation), together with former UBC Okanagan Provost and Vice-Principal Cynthia Mathieson, worked closely with former President Santa Ono in the final stages of this journey. Along with the support of the steering committee and the university community, they worked to keep priorities, strategies and actions inspirational, achievable and relevant for UBC now and into the future.

Process timeline

  • Phase 1 – Project planning (January 2017)
  • Phase 2 – Visioning, listening, environmental scan (February 2017)
  • Phase 3 – Engagement and consultation around priorities (March – May 2017)
  • Phase 4 – Convergence on framework (June – September 2017)
  • Phase 5 – Convergence on objectives and strategies (October 2017 – January 2018)
  • Phase 6 – Translation to actions and deliverables (first step in implementation; spring 2018)

What we heard

We are grateful to all those who submitted comments, whether through online surveys, at open house events or during one of our Facebook Live events. Please find below a series of reports from those engagement activities.

Reports from Phases 1 and 2

Reports from Phase 3

Reports from Phase 5