The long-awaited moment is approaching: registration for Congress 2015 will officially open in early January. All the information you need to get ready for Canada's largest gathering of academics is now available on the Congress website. Keep in mind that those who register by March 31 will benefit from the early bird rate, so be ready to register right after the holidays! 

Nominations for seven positions on the Federation's Board of Directors will open on January 6, 2015. The open positions are:  Treasurer; Director, Research Policy; Research Dissemination; Director, Institutions (2 positions); and Director, Associations (2 positions). Nominations can be made by current General Assembly representatives and by current members of the Board. Nominees must be (1) affiliated with a learned society, association, university or college which is a member of the Federation and (2) either currently or previously engaged in teaching and/or research in the humanities or social sciences. Nominations will close at the end of the business day on Friday, January 27, 2015. Online elections will take place from February 2 to 13, 2015.

The Federation has welcomed Prime Minister Stephen Harper's announcement to support world-class research at Canadian post-secondary education institutions, and is calling for a broad-based approach to innovation. Federation President Antonia Maioni and Executive Director Jean-Marc Mangin welcomed the proposal, stressing the need to mobilize all fields of knowledge across the sciences, engineering, arts, social sciences and the humanities through the new fund. More information is available on this and the updated Science Technology and Innovation Strategy (ST&I)  in the Federation's media release and policy briefing to members.

Peter Feldstein has been awarded the Governor General's Literary Award for French-to-English Translation for his translation of Paul-Émile Borduas: A Critical Biography by François-Marc Gagnon (McGill-Queen's University Press). Feldstein's translation was supported in part by a Translation Grant from the Federation's Awards to Scholarly Publications Program (ASPP). The Federation is very happy to see an ASPP-funded translation acknowledged in this way, as you can read in our blog. Congratulations Peter! 

The Equity Matters blog series is a space where the Federation's community of scholars can meet to highlight equity issues as they play out in society, policy-making, academia and beyond. Running since 2010, the series focuses on issues like gender, aboriginal rights, race and disability. This week, Equity Matters celebrates Human Rights Day (December 10) through two blog contributions. In the first, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights, discusses Canada's rocky relationship with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the second, Montreal lawyer Pearl Eliadis expresses concern over what she sees as the federal government's increasing marginalization of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

World-renowned sociolinguist and Canada Research Chair Shana Poplack, Professor at the University of Ottawa, treated a captivated audience to a glimpse of her research at the Royal Society of Canada's Annual General Meeting in Québec City on November 21, as part of the Federation's Big Thinking lecture series. If you've ever pondered questions like: why do we say "like" so much, or why do we have so many different ways of expressing the future tense, then you will enjoy watching Dr. Poplack's full lecture: Mythes et science: The ideology of "standard" language.

Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, Big Thinking will be returning to Parliament after the winter holidays with new lectures that connect Canada's policymakers to important research in the social sciences and humanities. The series will pick up again on February 5 with Kent Roach, Prichard-Wilson Chair of Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, and a lecture titled "Judicial Activism and the Role of Courts in Providing Remedies." Janice Stein, Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto will speak on April 28. 

The Federation has produced a working paper on the importance of taking concrete steps towards measuring the impacts of SSH research. The project's French-language launch took place at Concordia University in Montréal on October 6, as part of a colloquium hosted by the Fonds de recherche du Québec. The launch panel featured Federation Executive Director Jean-Marc Mangin and Board member Lyne Sauvageau, and can now be viewed online.

The Federation's policy team has produced a summary of key findings of a report by the Education Policy Research Initiative at the University of Ottawa. The report, which surveyed 82,000 University of Ottawa graduates over a 13-year period to measure earnings and track outcomes, revealed that social sciences and humanities graduates have more stable earnings than their peers in computer science, engineering, and math. The report also sheds light on earning disparity between male and female graduates. 

The Federation was thrilled to be at the 37th Salon du livre de Montréal on November 21 to host a workshop on the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program (ASPP). Publishers of scholarly books were invited to learn more about funding opportunities available through the ASPP. The workshop was facilitated by Anne-Marie Fortier, chair of the ASPP's Academic Council, and Nadine Tremblay, editorial director at the Presses de l'Université de Montréal.  Jessica Clark, ASPP Coordinator, was present at the Salon and reported back with this blog post.

The Federation was present at the Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) conference on December 3 to launch the Indigenous Education Protocol for Colleges and Institutes, an initiative to enhance colleges' and institutes' commitment to serving Canada's indigenous communities. The protocol is founded on seven principles that focus on making indigenous education, employment and self-determination a priority for CICan's 137 member signatories.    

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The Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences is a national, member-based organization that promotes the value of research and learning for a free and democratic society.

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