Research is vital to NSCAD’s mission, culture and success and the university is committed to creating and fostering opportunities that advance the visual arts and furthers NSCAD’s reputation as a leader in research pertinent to the university’s mandate.

In our increasingly complex and diverse cultures, research in the visual arts requires knowledge, experience, originality, reflection, risk, experimentation, innovation, invention, flexibility and adaptability, among others. Although there are many approaches to research at NSCAD, many successful research practices find common themes: the identification of significant questions, issues and/or interests for inquiry; the development of a body of knowledge and understandings of the contexts in which questions, issues, interests are positioned; the employment of a relevant method of inquiry, toward an outcome; and, the communication of the outcome of the inquiry to the communities which have an interest in the research, including the public.

Although the scope and nature of research at NSCAD is fundamentally rooted in the priorities of Divisions, discipline areas, and individual researchers, the university has assigned overarching responsibility for research to the Provost and Vice-President (Academic Affairs). Those responsibilities include: ensuring that research initiatives are in compliance with university’s policies and that the university is in compliance with regulations of funding partners, promoting, supporting the ongoing and emerging research areas and opportunities for new initiatives; liaising effectively with funding and other partners, including post-secondary institutions nationally and internationally.  

With the support of the Office of Research Services and Industry Liaison and other university-wide administrative offices, NSCAD faculty, students, and staff are engaged in a range of individual and collective projects relevant to research in the visual arts and design. As well, the University continues its support of its research centres, institutes, and clusters, including those well established, emerging, or proposed.  Research activities in the visual arts are often interdisciplinary, involving private and public partners and collaborators from other cultural organizations and educational institutions as well associations with business and industry. Research activities at NSCAD are supported by funding agencies specific to the arts, by funding bodies specific to the social sciences and the humanities, the natural sciences and engineering, as well as through other federal and provincial agencies, and the private sector.