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Cross-Faculty Education and Research Our commitment to encouraging multidisciplinary and multi-department approaches to tackling engineering issues can be illustrated with the cross-Faculty minors and the five EDU-Cs (Extra-Departmental Units) that have been firmly established in the past two years. The latest addition to these collaborative research initiatives is BioZone. This centre fosters interdisciplinary bioengineering and environmental microbiology research by students and faculty in Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, IBBME, Cell and Systems Biology, Biochemistry, Geology, Medicine, and Geography. Other educational cross-Faculty opportunities exist in the growing number of undergraduate minor and certificate options for students. In the fall of 2011, minors in Engineering Business and Robotics & Mechatronics will begin, as will certificates in Engineering Business and Global Engineering. Many of the new course offerings tend to match activity in the EDU-Cs. In both cases, they reflect societal issues where engineering has an important role to play. Majors are also reflecting cross-Faculty collaboration. Engineering Science’s new Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics & Finance Major has been well-received, with 31 students registered in the first year the major was offered. This program, which began in September 2010, is delivered by faculty from MIE and several departments in Arts & Science and the Rotman School of Management. Graduate program initiatives that span departments or other schools include MEng certificates like ELITE (Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Innovation & Technology in Engineering), EPP (Engineering & Public Policy), and Global (Engineering & Globalization). Research centres at the department level, often defined as EDU-Ds, continued to grow in both scope and activity in 2010–2011. Two such centres — Centre for Advanced Coating Technologies (CACT) and Emerging Communications Technology Institute (ECTI) — along with one EDU-C — Identity, Privacy and Security Institute (IPSI) — are profiled in this chapter.
38 | Chapter 4: Cross-Faculty Education and Research | Annual Report 2011 | Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering