2026-2031
The UBC Faculty of Management is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and its peoples. The Faculty acknowledges their enduring relationship with this land and expresses its commitment to meaningful reconciliation through teaching, research, learning, and community engagement.
Upward reflects the Faculty of Management’s commitment to purposeful growth, continuous improvement, and shared momentum. It signals a Faculty moving into its next chapter. Grounded in the strengths of a globally recognized university and shaped by the Faculty’s defining context, Upward sets a clear and future-looking direction for the UBC Faculty of Management. It builds on the Faculty’s strengths while positioning the Faculty for its next stage of growth as a distinctive business school known for student success, research excellence, reciprocal engagement, and meaningful impact.
Vision
To drive business innovation that advances sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous communities.
Mission
To shape the future of business, the Faculty of Management draws on the strength of one of the world’s leading universities to pursue excellence in teaching and research, inspire principled leaders, strengthen organizations, and create lasting impact.
Respect
The Faculty values diverse perspectives, dignity, cultural awareness, honesty, and ethical conduct in all areas of activity.
Intellectual Integrity
The Faculty supports open inquiry with intellectual rigour, prioritizes deep insight, and invites critical examination of assumptions, evidence, and conclusions.
Inclusive Community
The Faculty cultivates belonging by welcoming diverse people, perspectives, and experiences, and by building a community where students, faculty, staff, alumni, and partners can contribute and thrive.
Academic Excellence
The Faculty pursues continuous improvement in teaching, research, and service to deliver an exceptional student experience and advance the quality of business education.
Accountability
The Faculty stewards resources responsibly, allocates them for greatest value, and reports progress with transparency.
The strategy is organized around three mutually reinforcing pillars. Together, they connect the Faculty’s academic mission, research ambition, student experience, and external engagement. The pillars are supported by cross-cutting enablers that build the institutional capacity required for quality, agility, accreditation readiness, and sustainable growth.
Strategic Pillars
Pillar 1: Transformative Learning and Student Success
Strategic Commitments
1.1 Integrate Critical Thinking Development
Embed rigorous critical thinking across all programs through scaffolded learning outcomes, learning activities, and assessments that strengthen students’ ability to analyze evidence, evaluate arguments, make data-informed decisions, and exercise sound professional judgment.
1.2 Expand Experiential Learning
Enhance co-operative education, case competitions, capstone projects, community-based learning, case-study integration, and simulations that connect classroom learning with real-world application.
1.3 Build Future-Ready Capabilities
Future-proof the curriculum by developing the durable and emerging capabilities graduates need to thrive amid change, including adaptability, collaboration, communication, data and digital fluency, artificial intelligence literacy, ethical reasoning, and responsible technology use.
1.4 Strengthen Program Innovation and Flexibility
Develop accessible and flexible learning options, including laddered pathways, non-credit offerings, professional development programs, and continuing education opportunities that respond to learner needs and evolving market demand.
1.5 Offer Exceptional Student Support
Implement comprehensive support structures from recruitment through alumni engagement, including academic advising, mentorship, career preparation, wellness referrals, and programming that strengthens student resilience, belonging, and success.
1.6 Advance Assurance of Learning and Continuous Improvement
Strengthen the assessment of learning outcomes and use evidence from students, alumni, employers, faculty, and partners to improve curriculum, pedagogy, advising, and student support over time.
- Ensure all programs have clearly defined, assessed, and continuously improved learning outcomes.
- Embed critical thinking, ethical judgment, digital fluency, AI literacy, and responsible technology use across the curriculum.
- Expand applied learning through case-based teaching, co-operative education, capstone projects, simulations, competitions, and partner-connected experiences.
- Establish integrated student pathways from recruitment through alumni engagement.
- Improve career readiness and graduate outcomes through advising, experiential learning, employer engagement, and alumni connection.
- Develop flexible learning pathways for undergraduate, graduate, professional, and lifelong learners.
- Strengthen student voice, leadership, and belonging through partnership with student associations and co-curricular initiatives.
Pillar 2: Research Excellence and Knowledge Creation
2.1 Build Research Support
Strengthen research support services, mentorship, professional development, and infrastructure for faculty at all career stages, with particular attention to supporting research excellence among junior faculty and creating pathways for research-intensive careers.
2.2 Increase Research Impact and Knowledge Mobilization
Strengthen pathways for research dissemination through high-quality scholarly publications and translate findings into practitioner-friendly formats that inform business practice.
2.3 Integrate Research into Teaching and Learning
Connect scholarship and the classroom by embedding current research and faculty expertise into curriculum, cases, student projects, experiential learning, and graduate programming, advancing a culture of research-informed teaching that keeps programs relevant and evidence-based.
2.4 Establish Graduate Research Programming
Develop graduate research programs that build research capacity, attract exceptional graduate students, deepen faculty-student research collaboration, and strengthen the Faculty’s research culture and output.
2.5 Define and Communicate Research Strengths
Identify and communicate areas of research strength and emerging opportunity that align with the Faculty’s mission, regional context, global business challenges, and priorities for societal impact.
- Strengthen research supports that enable faculty success across career stages.
- Increase high-quality scholarly output and research impact.
- Expand knowledge mobilization that informs business practice, policy, professional communities, and community decision-making.
- Embed faculty research and expertise into curriculum, cases, student projects, and experiential learning.
- Establish graduate research programming that builds research capacity and deepens faculty-student collaboration.
- Define and communicate distinctive research strengths aligned with the Faculty’s mission, regional context, and global business challenges.
- Advance research that contributes to societal impact and supports sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous communities.
Pillar 3: Engagement, Partnerships, and Impact
3.1 Advance Indigenous Engagement and Curriculum
Advance the respectful integration of Indigenous perspectives across the curriculum by engaging meaningfully with the Syilx Okanagan Nation and other Indigenous communities to inform program development, teaching, and research in ways that are pedagogically appropriate and aligned with course content and learning outcomes.
3.2 Strengthen Alumni Relations
Develop a comprehensive alumni engagement strategy that includes routine communication, regional chapters, networking events, mentorship programs, recognition of alumni achievements, and philanthropic partnerships that connect alumni to the Faculty’s future.
3.3 Expand Industry and Community Partnerships
Strengthen relationships with local businesses, Indigenous communities, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and professional communities through collaborative research, experiential learning opportunities, advisory relationships, customized professional development, and student career pathways.
3.4 Leverage Strategic Collaborations and Partnerships
Strengthen strategic collaborations with national and international post-secondary institutions and professional associations to leverage complementary strengths, expand partnership opportunities, and enhance the Faculty’s reach.
- Advance Indigenous engagement and curriculum through respectful, reciprocal, and outcomes-aligned approaches.
- Strengthen alumni connection through communication, mentorship, recognition, regional chapters, and philanthropic engagement.
- Expand industry and community partnerships that support experiential learning, research collaboration, professional development, and student career pathways.
- Deepen strategic collaborations with post-secondary institutions, professional associations, and external partners.
- Increase the Faculty’s visibility and impact through partnerships that advance sustainable business, inclusive prosperity, responsible innovation, entrepreneurship, and community wellbeing.
Cross-Cutting Enablers
Success across all three pillars depends on institutional capabilities that enable continuous improvement: AACSB accreditation readiness, faculty and staff excellence, organizational culture, process innovation and governance, brand and market presence, infrastructure and resources, and data-informed decision-making.
The following enablers strengthen the institutional capacity required to deliver on the strategic pillars and sustain continuous improvement. Each enabler identifies a strategic commitment, followed by a five-year goal that clarifies the capability the Faculty will build over the life of the plan.
Advance AACSB Accreditation
Pursue and maintain AACSB accreditation through quality enhancement of programs, assurance of learning, faculty qualifications and engagement, research impact, strategic management, stakeholder engagement, and evidence-informed decision-making.
Five-Year Goal: Establish and sustain accreditation-ready systems, evidence, and practices that demonstrate mission alignment, strategic management, learner success, thought leadership, engagement, societal impact, resource sufficiency, faculty and staff capacity, and continuous improvement.
Brand and Market Presence
Develop focused marketing and communication strategies that articulate the Faculty’s distinctive value proposition, celebrate student and faculty success, and position the Faculty of Management as a leader in business education that emphasizes student experience, innovation, and impact.
Five-Year Goal: Establish a clear and differentiated market presence that communicates the Faculty’s value proposition, strengthens recruitment and engagement, celebrates achievements, and builds recognition for innovation, student experience, research excellence, and impact.
Faculty and Staff Excellence
Recruit, develop, and retain talented faculty committed to teaching excellence, impactful research, and service. Hire, develop, and retain high-performing staff committed to student support, operational excellence, and collaborative service to the Faculty’s academic mission.
Five-Year Goal: Build a mission-aligned faculty and staff complement with the capacity, qualifications, development pathways, and engagement required to deliver high-quality teaching, impactful research, exceptional learner support, and effective operations.
Organizational Culture
Cultivate trust, transparency, collaboration, wellbeing, and shared accountability. Create an environment where innovation is encouraged, diverse perspectives are valued, and all community members feel they belong.
Five-Year Goal: Foster a collaborative, inclusive, transparent, and high-trust culture where people feel a shared commitment to student success, academic quality, innovation, wellbeing, accountability, and the Faculty’s future.
Infrastructure and Resources
Secure resources for faculty positions, staff support, technology, research infrastructure, learning spaces, and facilities that enable program growth and teaching and research excellence. Advocate for Faculty of Management dedicated infrastructure, including enhanced classrooms, collaborative spaces, and community gathering areas.
Five-Year Goal: Secure and align physical, digital, financial, and human resources to support program growth, student success, research excellence, community engagement, and long-term sustainability.
Implementation and Accountability
Upward will guide the Faculty’s planning, priority setting, and resource allocation over the next five years. Progress will be advanced through annual action planning and reviewed regularly against the plan’s strategic commitments and five-year goals. Evidence related to student success, research impact, partnerships, accreditation readiness, and organizational capacity will inform ongoing improvement and ensure the plan remains responsive to emerging opportunities and the Faculty’s evolving context.