The Mowat Centre is an independent public policy think tank located at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and Ontario’s non-partisan, evidence-based voice on public policy.
We undertake collaborative applied policy research, propose innovative research-driven recommendations, and engage in public dialogue on Canada’s most important national issues.
Our policy areas of expertise are intergovernmental economic and social policy, state transformation, energy policy and not-for-profit policy.
The Mowat Centre seeks to inform and revitalize Canada’s public policy agenda from the Ontario perspective, given new Canadian and global realities. Our research focuses on the federal policy frameworks and strategies that will most strongly affect Ontario’s prosperity and quality of life in the next century.
Canadians are increasingly aware that other countries are now competing with Canada as never before and that many are creatively confronting some of their most pressing policy challenges. And many Canadians are rightly concerned that our political leadership is not engaging in substantive debate about the issues that will determine Canada’s long-term fortunes.
Evidence-based applied public policy research and a healthy public debate on some of Canada’s key foundational public policies are necessary to modernize our country’s public policy architecture.
Mowat approaches knowledge development in a collaborative way. We conduct our own research, commission research from leading and emerging scholars and engage in collaborative research projects with other organizations.
We work to ensure that our research and analysis is timely, relevant, and realistic. We consider our research successful if it influences the public conversation, impacts the policy agenda, engages a wide audience and, ultimately, is translated into real policy changes that make Canada a more successful country.
The animating spirit of our research is to suggest new but practical ways of looking at long-standing public policy challenges, free from the constraints of short-term political pressures or policy choices of the past.
By establishing new connections among government decision-makers, public policy researchers, stakeholders and social innovators in the broader community, the Mowat Centre aspires to help shape better policy outcomes for Canada. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that all of us continue to share a sense of common citizenship, benefit from equality of opportunity, and have access to all the benefits of being Canadian.
View our Annual Reports & 5 Year Impact Report
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