Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences · Strategic Plan

Year 2 strategic plan update

Putting the roadmap into practice — and learning from what the work is changing.

Evidence through August 31, 2026
Teaching & LearningAccessible, flexible and innovative education that prepares graduates for the careers of tomorrow.
Research & InnovationImpactful, collaborative research with growing visibility, translation and real-world impact.
People & CultureA thriving, diverse and inclusive community where students, faculty and staff can do their best work.
Community EngagementMeaningful engagement and impact through service, partnerships and relationships.

Year 1 mobilized the roadmap. By March 2025, 106 unique projects had launched. The current working monitoring record now contains about 160 project and activity records, reflecting work that has been added, expanded or separated as the plan has evolved. They are in different stages of completion, implementation and refinement.

How we are thinking about progress

The roadmap tells us what we are trying to change. Project evidence tells us whether the change is becoming real. Annual evidence tells us what we are seeing in the Faculty. Monitoring connects those layers so that we can decide what to sustain, investigate or adapt.

Year 2 has been about what that growing body of work is becoming: new processes and supports in use, programs and partnerships taking shape, and more of the roadmap moving from design into routine practice.

Year 2 strategic plan update

Year 1 mobilized 106 projects. The current working monitoring record now contains about 160 project and activity records in different stages of completion, implementation and refinement. Year 2 has focused on putting more of that work into practice and learning from what it is changing.

  • Teaching & Learning: stronger PharmD demand, systematic curriculum review, student-support infrastructure, educational technology, and post-professional renewal moving into implementation.
  • Research & Innovation: research themes and supports, growing proposal activity, graduate quality infrastructure and stronger scholarly output.
  • People & Culture: workload planning, mentorship and development, service redesign, Culture of Care, safety and recognition across faculty and staff.
  • Community Engagement: movement in practice, philanthropy, international and community relationships, with more opportunity for growth.

The next Faculty retreat will focus on Indigenous initiatives and reconciliation in pharmacy education and research.

What changed along the roadmap

For each of the four strategic areas, the information below shows what has become established, what is still developing, and where the work is heading next.

Teaching & LearningFrom individual feedback to more systematic improvement
  • PharmD demand strengthened while the entering cohort remained stable.
  • Course and stream review moved toward a recurring, evidence-informed curriculum oversight model.
  • Student-support systems evolved beyond early identification to include the operational processes needed to respond consistently.
  • Canvas and related educational infrastructure continued to move into routine use.
  • Post-professional renewal moved into implementation, with CCPP modularization and PPP redesign advancing more flexible pathways.
Research & InnovationMaking strengths, supports and quality structures more visible
  • Research themes moved into public-facing implementation and collaboration-building.
  • Pilot, bridge, seed, matching and direct grant-support mechanisms became clearer and more usable.
  • Graduate-program standards and resources advanced toward a cyclical quality framework.
  • Explore additional partnership and funding opportunities.
  • External proposal activity, research revenue and scholarly output provide complementary views of the Faculty's research activity.
People & CultureBuilding the conditions that help faculty and staff do their work well
  • The new workload-planning cycle reached all faculty and is being refined from first-cycle experience.
  • Mentorship, onboarding and professional development are moving from frameworks toward structured implementation.
  • Operational service redesign, role clarity, staff development and service navigation continued under the FGM portfolio.
  • The former Associate Dean, Academic portfolio was split into Associate Dean, Student Academic Affairs and Associate Dean, Education roles, strengthening leadership focus for student support and academic-program work.
  • Culture of Care, safety, recognition and everyday appreciation are becoming more visible across faculty and staff.
Community EngagementMeaningful movement, with more opportunity ahead

Work moved forward through practice and preceptor relationships, alumni and donor engagement, international partnerships, public and professional outreach, and emerging growth opportunities.

Community Engagement remains an area where the Faculty has room to deepen and coordinate its work, and that is becoming clearer in the priorities taking shape for the next phase of the roadmap.

A snapshot of our Faculty

This annual evidence snapshot brings together program, research and people outcomes that help us understand the Faculty alongside the work of the roadmap. Some indicators respond quickly to current activity; others will take several years to reflect changes now underway.

Current outputLonger-term outcomeContext / baseline

Academic programs

Demand signal
417 → 462 → ~600
PharmD applicants
2024–25 to the current 2026–27 admissions cycle. The latest cycle has been reported as reaching nearly 600 applications.
Graduating outcome
62 → 68 → 68%
Perceived preparedness to enter pharmacy practice
AFPC graduating survey, 2024–26. Percentage selecting Agree or Strongly Agree. These graduating cohorts largely predate the current strategic-plan work.
Support & resources
62 → 66 → 67%
Support and resources supported success and wellness
AFPC graduating survey, 2024–26. Percentage selecting Agree or Strongly Agree.
Support & resources
59 → 62 → 68%
Suitable academic advising / counselling
AFPC graduating survey, 2024–26. Percentage selecting Agree or Strongly Agree.
Annual program output
129 · 2 · 8 · 10
Degrees granted in 2026 through June
PharmD · MSc · PhD · PharmD for Practicing Pharmacists. 2025 full year: 128 PharmD · 5 MSc · 4 PhD · 8 PPP. November convocation is not yet included in 2026; the PharmD count is expected to be close to final, while the other programs remain partial.
Licensure outcome
89% → 84%
Overall PEBC certification pass rate
2024 to 2025; the national 2025 rate was 82%. 2026 results are not yet available. Like graduating-survey outcomes, this is a trailing indicator for the current roadmap.

Research & graduate studies

Research pipeline
46 → 70
External research proposals
2024–25 to 2025–26. External awards also increased from 18 to 25. As of Sept. 11, 2026, 30 external proposals and 7 awards were recorded for 2026–27.
Financial output
$3.1M → $3.1M
Total research-related revenue
2024–25 to 2025–26 institutional research-resource snapshot. The 2026–27 snapshot was $2.7M as of Sept. 11, 2026.
Tri-Council funding
$1.9M → $2.1M
Tri-Council research revenue
CIHR + NSERC + SSHRC institutional revenue categories, 2024–25 to 2025–26. The current 2026–27 snapshot was $1.9M as of Sept. 11.
Scholarly output
126 → 144
Journal articles + reviews
Unique Faculty works, 2024 to 2025. In 2025, 138 involved Academic Faculty and 9 involved ATS; some publications involved authors from both groups.
Graduate-program context
46 → 50
Graduate fall headcount
2024–25 to 2025–26. The provisional 2026–27 snapshot is 47 students (23 PhD, 24 MSc).
Graduate output
2 MSc · 8 PhD
Graduate degrees granted in 2026 through June
2025 full year: 5 MSc · 4 PhD. The 2026 counts remain partial until November convocation.

People & Culture

2025 experience baseline
87%
Faculty & staff job satisfaction
Academic Faculty 73% · ATS 93% · non-academic staff 93%. No comparable 2026 survey wave was run, so these remain baselines for future comparison.
2025 experience baseline
4.3 / 5
Faculty & staff well-being
Academic Faculty 3.5 · ATS 4.7 · non-academic staff 4.6. These values provide a starting point for future experience measurement.
Workforce context
23 · 16 · 2Tenure-track · ATS · instructors/lecturers
13 · 4 · 4 · 1Support · technical · APO · social work
2025–26. In 2024–25: 22 · 19 · 2 academic categories, alongside 12 support, 4 technical, 4 APO and 1 counselling psychologist.
Making contribution visible

Recognition is also part of the evidence story

Faculty communications have increasingly made visible the contributions that sustain the community: staff profiles and welcomes, safety shout-outs, retirements and appreciations, graduate milestones, research-day achievements, and acknowledgements of committee, volunteer and service contributions. These examples complement formal awards by showing the everyday work and people behind the Faculty's progress.

How to read these measures

Implementation / reach describes whether a change is operating and reaching the people it is intended to support. Current output describes activity and products visible now. Longer-term outcomes include graduating experience, licensure and completion measures that will take time to reflect current strategic work. Context / baseline gives us a reference point for future change.

Where the roadmap is taking us next

The experience of Year 2, together with the evidence assembled for this update, is sharpening the next phase of the roadmap.

Embed systematic program improvement

Make course and stream review, assessment evidence, graduate-program standards and recurring quality review part of the normal rhythm of academic work.

Move student support further upstream

Continue building APMaSS, clearer support pathways, professionalism processes and financial/access supports so needs can be identified and addressed earlier and more consistently.

Advance post-professional program renewal

Move CCPP modularization and PPP redesign from evaluation and planning into flexible new pathways, updated program structures and implementation.

Strengthen research capacity and graduate development

Build on the Faculty's research themes, grant-support infrastructure, mentorship and graduate program quality assurance work while continuing to monitor funding, scholarly output and graduate outcomes. We will also explore additional partnership and funding opportunities.

Build the conditions for faculty and staff to thrive

Advance mentorship, professional development, workload refinement, role clarity, service improvement and Culture of Care across academic and support-staff communities.

Make evidence easier to use

Continue shifting from repeated status requests toward bringing together evidence already created through committees, projects and operational systems, then returning it to leads for review and action.

Deepen Indigenous initiatives and reconciliation

The next Faculty retreat will focus on Indigenous initiatives and reconciliation in pharmacy education and research, creating a shared opportunity for learning and follow-through across the roadmap.

Grow relationships and sustainable opportunities

Continue developing practice, alumni, donor, international and community partnerships while becoming more deliberate about the reach, reciprocity and impact of that work.

Strategic-plan monitoring

From asking for updates to bringing evidence back for review

The original quarterly-update model helped launch the reporting process. As the student-support and curriculum-oversight systems grew, the reporting approach evolved too. The next step is to synthesize evidence people already create through their work and bring it back to leads for validation—reducing duplicate reporting and creating more time for interpretation and action.

Explore the portfolio updates

The portfolio briefs show the project work behind this Faculty-wide view. Their community-facing sections describe what advanced and where the work is taking us. The lead-review sections also include the broader candidate-indicator landscape that will help shape Year 3 monitoring.

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