About Big Thinking

What's Big Thinking?

The Federation’s Big Thinking series challenges and inspires academics, students, policymakers, legislators, and community members with big ideas in the humanities and social sciences. It features leading scholars and researchers showcasing their work and tackling the public policy issues that will help shape the Canada of tomorrow.

It started with Big Thinking on the Hill, events on Parliament Hill which addressed MPs, senators, policy professionals, and members of the public in forums on emerging topics of interest. We then developed Big Thinking on the Road to bring this event series to our academic community across Canada.

Now, we're bringing these ideas to new audiences in new ways.

Current initiatives 

Big Thinking Summit: Inflection Point will bring the humanities and social sciences (HSS) to the forefront. Together, we must draw on historical, linguistic, cultural, and practice-based perspectives to open new possibilities for a Canada at the crossroads. Learn more

Discover our archives of previous Big Thinking Summits

Big Thinking Podcast features leading researchers in the humanities and social sciences in conversation sharing their knowledge and insights on relevant public issues, in a recently-launched digital format. Listen to the series on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast and Spotify. Find out more

Big Thinking at Congress is the key opportunity at the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences for academics, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to share ideas and solutions for a more innovative, progressive, and inclusive society. Find out more

What’s next?

Big Thinking is continuously growing and adapting to change. If you have any ideas for a future speaker or podcast topic featuring scholars in the humanities or social sciences that you think is a great fit for Big Thinking, contact us!

Submit your idea