Monique Roy-Sole, Research Communications Officer, University of Ottawa

One of the major hubs of activity during Congress 2015 will be the Social Sciences Building, which houses the University of Ottawa’s largest faculty. Inaugurated in the fall of 2012, the modern, light-filled structure gathers the entire Faculty of Social Sciences — more than 10,000 students, 260 full-time professors and 100 staff — under one roof. For first time in the faculty’s 60-year history, its departments, schools and institute are no longer scattered all over campus.

The 15-storey tower in the heart of campus will be the site of the Big Thinking series at Congress and of several association conferences. The...

Jean-Marc Mangin and Nour Aoude, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Some things change…

It can be hard to imagine that Congress, a meeting of more than 8,000 scholars and researchers, started when a handful of Canadian learned societies began exploring the idea of hosting their annual meetings at the same place, at the same time. In fact, there is evidence of this happening as early as 1922! Early players like the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA), the Canadian Historical Society (now the Canadian Historical Association) and the Royal Society took the lead on this through the 1930s and 40s, calling themselves the ‘Learneds’. This may sound very grand, but our best estimates suggest that the whole population of...