City of Montréal partners with the CIRM
On the occasion of the first anniversary of the Je fais MTL event, McGill University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal (CIRM), the Je fais MTL Office and the Montréal, Smart and Digital City Office today announced a new association that will enable the City of Montréal to expand on the possibilities offered by the Jefaismtl.com interactive platform, which features 181 projects overseen by the Je fais MTL movement
This two-year partnership agreement will enable the Je fais MTL Office and the Montréal, Smart and Digital City Office to work jointly with the CIRM on developing certain applications that will make a direct contribution to the enhancement and implementation of projects, particularly those contained in the 2014-2017 Strategy for Montréal, Smart and Digital City.
An enriched platform
This partnership will explore the possibilities offered by crowdfunding, a micro-volunteering module, and a variety of analysis tools, notably those to be used in the Montréal, Smart and Digital City 2015-2017 Action Plan. The CIRM will accordingly be able to help the Montréal, Smart and Digital City Office accurately target data sets that could be of interest to researchers and to take part in concrete projects to enhance the resulting open data arrays, notably in terms of smart mobility, participatory democracy and the municipality’s digital services.
“The City of Montréal is delighted to be in a position to join in this constructive approach to establish an effective communication channel between our municipal administration and the university-level researchers affiliated with the CIRM,” declared Harout Chitilian, Vice-chair of the Executive Committee and coordinator of the Smart City project, information technology, administrative reform and youth issues. “This collaboration initiative will be a boon for all Je fais MTL project leaders, and it will go a long way to fostering the revitalization of Montréal.”
“The two main pillars of CIRM’s mission are to stimulate and unite multidisciplinary research about Montréal and to mobilize the city’s civil servants, contractors and residents to join in the development of new research and projects. This partnership with the Je fais MTL project monitoring office and the Montréal, Smart and Digital City Office is a major leap forward in this mission. It reflects both the willingness of researchers to intensify our knowledge of Montréal in a spirit of open cooperation and the municipal administration’s desire to make the most of the immense innovation potential of Montréal’s universities,” added CIRM Director Pascal Brissette.
This tripartite partnership founded on the Je fais MTL collaborative platform will provide the CIRM’s high-level researchers with both a sharing space and a lever they can use to interact with the population of Montréal. The resulting cooperation is sure to have a beneficial effect on research projects concerning Montréal and on the daily life of Montrealers. The platform’s functionalities, notably the call-in feature and the solution-sharing groups, will be put to good use towards that end.
Complementary missions
Founded in 2012, the CIRM currently encompasses 44 research professionals from McGill University, Université de Montréal, Concordia, UQAM, the INRS, Sherbrooke University and Laval University in disciplines as diverse as history, architecture, literature, communication sciences, philosophy, law, ethics, political science, urban studies, geography and social work.
The mission of the Je fais MTL project monitoring office, which is managed by municipal administrator Diane De Courcy, is to maintain the self-reliant dynamics established in the course of the “Je vois Montréal” citizens’ movement and to support city leaders in projects contributing to the city’s social and economic development.
