Optimizing Power Skills in Interdisciplinary, Diverse & Innovative Academic Networks (OPSIDIAN)

加拿大要确保其在竞争激烈的知识型全球经济中的领导地位，就必须充分利用其生产和创新潜力。科学、技术、工程和数学方面的基本技能虽然是必要的，但已不足以支持技术创新和生产力增长。权力技能，例如多样性和跨学科驱动的沟通、团队合作和领导力，现在已成为不可避免的补充能力。然而，工业界和学术界研究界都没有能力充分挖掘跨学科和多元化团队的潜力。 OPSIDAN 是一个独立的项目，它将力量技能的获取作为培训的核心。学员将把这些技能运用到OPSIDIAN横向阐述的五个工程领域（生物医学、土木、计算机、工业、机械）中。该计划将提供知识和工具来培训学生将跨学科性和多样性融入创新的科学和工程团队。利用基于建构主义的方法，培训将被整合为知识共建的主动情境化过程，让学生充分参与学习过程。高度可转移和可进化的权力技能将使学员在未来的工作前景中具有明显的优势，因为学术界、行业和政府都在积极寻求这些技能。 据我们所知，OPSIDIAN 将为加拿大各地的工程研究生提供独特且创新的培训模式。它孕育了学生在跨学科和多样化的科学和工程团队中有效协作、相互联系和创新的培训方式的范式变化。随着时间的推移，OPSIDIAN 的目标是将其培训模式从全国各地转移到加拿大其他大学。

For Canada to secure its leadership in a highly competitive knowledge-based global economy, it must take full advantage of its productive and innovative potential. Fundamental skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, although necessary, are no longer sufficient for technological innovation and productivity growth. Power skills, such as diversity- and interdisciplinary-driven communication, teamwork and leadership, have now become inescapable complementary competencies. Yet, both the industrial and academic research communities are ill-equipped to fully exploit the potential of interdisciplinary and diverse teams. OPSIDIAN is a stand-alone program, which places power skills acquisition at the core of the training. Trainees will put these skills into practice across five engineering fields (biomedical, civil, computer, industrial, mechanical) around which OPSIDIAN transversally articulates. The program will provide the knowledge and tools to train students to integrate interdisciplinarity and diversity in innovative science and engineering teams. Leveraging a constructivism-based approach, training will be integrated as an active contextualized process of knowledge co-construction, fully engaging students in their learning process. The highly transferable and evolvable power skills will grant trainees with a clear edge in their future job prospects, as those skills are actively sought by academia, industries and governments. To our knowledge, OPSIDIAN will offer a unique and innovative training model across Canada for engineering graduate students. It breeds a change of paradigm in the way students are trained to efficiently collaborate, interrelate and innovate within interdisciplinary and diverse science and engineering teams. Over time, OPSIDIAN's ambition is to transfer its training model to other Canadian Universities from coast-to-coast-to-coast.