Professor Paul Young re-appointed as vice-president (research)

Professor Paul Young has been reappointed vice-president (research) for the University of Toronto. The three-year term, effective July 2012, was approved by the University’s Governing Council today.

First appointed to the position in 2007, Young led a major University-wide planning effort that resulted in the University’s strategic research plan – called Excellence, Innovation, Leadership: The University of Toronto Strategic Research Plan, 2012-2017 – that charts the University’s research priorities in the coming years. The success of this project is a testament to Young’s passion for research and his ability to build consensus on complex challenges, said University of Toronto President David Naylor. 

“Prof. Young has been an unrelenting and ardent advocate for the University’s research and has worked tirelessly to communicate the success of our faculty and students both within the University community and beyond,” added President Naylor.  “His efforts have resulted in measureable success: an increase in the number of national and international awards granted to our distinguished faculty.”

Early in his term, Young undertook major change in the research portfolio with the goal of strengthening services to faculty in support of their research. He established mechanisms to help increase U of T’s success rate in large-scale competitions, such as those sponsored by the Canada Foundation for Innovation.  He also created a new portfolio focused on meeting the many oversight and compliance requirements associated with externally-funded research.

In addition, Young has taken steps to renew the University’s knowledge translation and technology transfer activities through the formation of the Innovation and Partnerships Office.  

Prior to assuming the role of vice-president (research), Young was Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Engineering – a position he held for three years, along with his appointment as the Keck Chair of Seismology and Rock Mechanics. Young was also the first Director of the Lassonde Institute for Engineering Geoscience.

Before joining the University in 2002, Prof. Young held a faculty position at Queen’s University in Kingston for nine years before he returned to the UK for an appointment at Keele University. There, he served as a department head before becoming Chair of Earth Sciences at Liverpool University.

Young is also a distinguished engineering geophysicist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2009 won the Society’s Willet G. Miller Medal for his contributions to earth sciences.