Our 2022 Scholars finally revealed!

27 May 2022

Congratulations and welcome to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation 2022 Scholars! From the roster of 30 finalists announced last March, the Foundation has selected 13 top Ph.D. candidates from Canada and around the globe as Scholars for its 2022–2025 scientific cycle and leadership programs. We are also excited to welcome this new cohort of Scholars as we celebrate the Foundation’s 20th anniversary this year.

These community-engaged and interdisciplinary Scholars have distinguished themselves as audacious leaders, eager to embark on a new journey of Engaged Leadership with the Foundation. They have demonstrated critical thinking skills and an openness to a plurality of perspectives that may bear and break new ground on contemporary issues.

These exceptional doctoral candidates come from a wide range of disciplines—engineering, law, criminology, epidemiology, literature, social sciences, psychology, political science and philosophy—from across Canada and around the world.

As in previous years, applications were submitted directly to the Foundation and the members of our 2022 Application and Nomination Review Committee (ANRC) proved to be particularly efficient and devoted. We wish to take this opportunity to thank all the committee members, starting with its dedicated Chair and Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer.

The Foundation’s selection process ensures that each application is reviewed on an equal footing during the Foundation’s stringent selection process, with a key focus on academic excellence and the candidates’ interest and potential to become engaged leaders. The Foundation is furthermore committed to selecting a diverse group of Scholars as described in its 2019-2024 Strategic Plan.

All in all, the Foundation received close to 500 applications this year from 22 countries and every continent, representing 45 universities in Canada and 55 elsewhere. It also invited 30 finalists for individual and group interviews, applying a hybrid evaluation method based on case studies.

Throughout this thorough and dynamic process, and before being officially named Foundation Scholars, all 2022 finalists were required to answer a number of difficult questions, take part in small group interviews and analyze fictional leadership scenarios. The results were evaluated by a distinguished and enthusiastic selection committee composed of leading academics, a judge, the Foundation’s President, Board members and alumni Scholars of the Foundation.

As a result, 13 remarkable Scholars were selected, representing 10 Canadian and international universities. This impressive cohort has demonstrated academic excellence, as well as their leadership potential through creativity, agility, resilience, commitment to a diversity of perspectives and, finally, their ability to engage in critical thinking and evolving dialogue about complex issues.

“Our selection process identifies the critical thinkers who are willing to see both the forest and the trees, who recognize their own blind spots and grasp the complexity of today’s social issues, and who share a real desire to build a harmonious society and democratize learning,” notes Pascale Fournier, President and CEO of the Foundation. “Taking part in a transformative leadership program requires genuine curiosity about other people and communities and, most importantly, an openness to a wide variety of opinions, experiences and perspectives. We thus look at both the candidates’ potential and desire to build bridges between themselves, others and the systems around them.”

The Scholars will embark on a three-year leadership program based on the Foundation’s leadership curriculum, Building Brave Spaces: The Path to Engaged Leadership. The curriculum will guide the Scholars step by step toward disseminating their research to the general public and the government, non-profit and private sectors. They will be accompanied throughout this process by 10 reputable Fellows and Mentors, selected by the Foundation as key leaders in their areas of expertise and communities. Each year, every Scholar will be paired with a Fellow or Mentor who will offer mentorship, and share access to their networks to the engaged leaders of tomorrow. Moreover, they will teach, help prepare and lead sessions during the Foundation’s Institutes of Engaged Leadership, which incorporate the six key leadership concepts identified by the Foundation along with the scientific cycle’s interdisciplinary intellectual content.

The program created for the new 2022 cohort will focus on the theme of Global Economies, enabling the Scholars to expand their horizons beyond their own fields of study. This scientific cycle represents a crucial time in history to engage emerging leaders on the merits of our globalized economy, while exploring the economic implications of a number of profound challenges and transformations over the past decades, including the global power shift, the rise of the digital economy, intensifying economic inequality, and the global pandemic. The theme will enable members of the Foundation’s community to reflect on what the future global economy could look like for more prosperous and equitable outcomes in Canada and the world.

This Foundation’s Path to Engaged Leadership further seeks to empower its Scholars to explore, ask difficult questions, and discover new horizons as they blaze new trails. This innovative model recognizes that creating a community also means accepting human relationships as a complex place of dialogue and connection in which, as strategic participants, we all wield some level of power. Through its Brave Spaces, the Foundation thus encourages its Scholars to engage in critical dialogue with a plurality of perspectives through profound curiosity, collaboration, creativity and innovation. The Foundation’s Code of Community Engagement, which provides a framework for this immersive experience, stresses the importance of academic freedom alongside active, authentic listening and respect for others.

Our Scholars have all undertaken to enhance their language skills in Canada’s two official languages, familiarize themselves with Indigenous languages and actively volunteer in their communities – critical abilities for aspiring and highly engaged leader in Canada and the world.

Thus, in addition to leadership training, the Foundation will provide our 2022 Scholars with generous financial support over the next three years as well as academic resources, mentoring opportunities, training on the Global Economies scientific cycle and, finally, personalized leadership training, designed to help Scholars reach new heights and have a meaningful impacts within their communities.

The Foundation is delighted to welcome the 2022 Scholars to our community and events, including our Institutes of Engaged Leadership, with other Scholars, Fellows, Mentors and several other members of our brilliant community.

Our warmest congratulations to all the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation’s 2022 Scholars. Welcome aboard!