Opinion: What universities owe an unsettled world 

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Canada is in the midst of yet another devastating wildfire season, the result of drier and hotter summers and a rapidly warming climate. Smoke from fires in Ontario and the U.S. have in past weeks drifted south, choking the skies over Chicago, New York and Detroit.

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The response from President Donald Trump has been swift, with new tariffs and accusations of negligence levied across the border. In B.C., fires have forced the closure of major highways, leaving communities in the Interior vulnerable. In Ontario, First Nations leaders, representing underserved communities who have been most affected by the fires, are accusing the province of leaving them to fend for themselves.

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What these fires reveal is the profound interconnection and amplification of fragility across economic, social and geographic lines.

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The conditions of the world today are shifting on a tectonic scale. Rising economic uncertainty, as well as heightened trans-actionalist and protectionist sentiments, are revealing economic fractures. Artificial intelligence, while remarkable in its promise, has proven no less seismic. It has upended the trajectory of once stable career paths, sent tremors through the future of work, and portends a re-imagination of education. Climate change presses at these fault lines, while conflict, polarization and mistrust widen them further.

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In Canada, these challenges have become impossible to ignore, affecting every aspect of our daily lives. The burden to solve them falls disproportionally on younger generations who face an uncertain future. We face difficult choices and must navigate them judiciously to emerge resilient and competitive.

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Universities have a vital role to play in this process. As institutions of knowledge, they reflect the values and aspirations we hold as a society, shaping how we see ourselves and revealing possibilities for an inclusive and sustainable future. As institutions of education, they equip us with critical skills and competencies and the ethical frameworks that guide how we use those skills. As institutions in and for communities, universities work to mobilize knowledge that makes a difference in the lives of everyday people. As nodes in networks of global research and knowledge, they are the connective tissue that brings the best of the world home and takes the best of Canada abroad.

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The fractures of today’s world demand that we resist the reflexive tendency to shrink back from fault lines. Instead, we must have the courage to look beyond ourselves and our borders. At SFU, this is evidenced in our partnerships with the Aga Khan University at a research centre in Arusha, Tanzania, and with the Ismaili community in B.C.

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The Arusha Climate and Environmental Research Centre is a joint initiative between SFU and the Aga Khan University, and a practical expression of each institution’s shared commitment to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. In the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, SFU students and faculty from around the world collaborate with local experts and communities in an environment that brings together world-class research and place-based experiential learning to address the twin challenges of climate and biodiversity change. They will return to Canada better informed, globally aware and attuned to ecosystem health, with practical experience in areas of biodiversity loss, water scarcity, food insecurity and deforestation.