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The ALES Story

Over the past century, ALES has been a cornerstone institution, shaping daily life from food and clothing to energy, water, and the natural environment. Its extensive network spans academic partners, governments, communities, educational institutions and industry — from ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ to global research hubs. 

• 17,500+ alumni, with over 60% still living in ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥, working in agriculture, environmental stewardship, health, and many other industries.
• $48 million in annual external research funding, backed by 320 sponsors and 72 private-sector partners over the past five years.
• 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) of farm and ranch land used for education, research, and outreach.

Within the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ context, ALES makes major contributions in its subject matter areas and has supported the University in ranking eighth globally for impact on sustainability, second in Canada for UN Sustainable Development Goal #15: Life on Land and fifth globally for #2: Zero Hunger³. ALES’s programs are nationally and globally respected, with Agricultural Sciences ranked 14^th globally and 1^st in Canada¹, and Agriculture + Forestry ranked third in Canada².

Through 2025, ALES has undertaken the development of a Strategic Plan to direct activities over the coming 3-5 years. The recommendations and actions in the ALES Strategic Plan are aligned to be consistent with the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥’s wider strategic plans.

Process

This strategic plan charts a bold path forward. It has been developed through extensive engagement with stakeholders. This included:

• Interviews and workshops with 16 members of the ALES leadership team.
• 43 additional interviews with alumni, university leadership, industry leaders, Indigenous advisors, government and more.
• Around 600 survey responses from internal and external stakeholders received between April and May 2025.
• Over 50 attendees at 6 town hall sessions for students, faculty and staff held in person in March 2025.
• Advice, direction and feedback from the ALES Dean and senior leadership team.

The strategic plan reflects a shared ambition to reimagine the faculty’s impact, sharpen its identity, refresh its capabilities, and lead through research and education in ways that meaningfully improve lives, ecosystems, and economies.

Desired Outcomes + Vision

This strategy aligns directly with other ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ strategic frameworks, and the principles embedded within these documents will be considered throughout. Additionally, this strategy will support ALES to deliver against key global goals, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — especially SDG 2: Zero Hunger, SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being, SDG 13: Climate Action, and SDG 15: Life on Land.

Above all, this strategic plan reflects the collective wisdom and ambition of the ALES community. It is grounded in evidence, shaped by consultation, and driven by a shared commitment to excellence and relevance. Through it, ALES commits to its vision to not just be a place of knowledge, but a force for impact — to advance and disseminate knowledge, innovation, and practice that serves ecosystems, communities, and economies in ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥, in Canada, and around the world.

Key Considerations

The next three years represent a transformative window. ALES faces a set of complex internal challenges such as uneven departmental structures, resource constraints, aging facilities, and reduced staffing flexibility due to hiring freezes. At the same time, the faculty must navigate a rapidly shifting external landscape. Post-secondary institutions are competing more aggressively for students and research funding. The credibility and value of university degrees are under increased scrutiny. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and geopolitical instability are intensifying pressures on the systems that ALES seeks to protect and transform. In short, ALES must not only adapt to change but drive it.

Despite these pressures, ALES is uniquely positioned for leadership. The faculty’s four departments — Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science (AFNS), Human Ecology (HE), Renewable Resources (RENR), and Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology (REES) — bring together a full spectrum of natural, life, and social sciences that enables ALES to develop comprehensive solutions to the world’s grand challenges.

This process revealed a wide range of internal and external considerations that have shaped the vision, desired outcomes and recommendations made in this plan.

Recommendations

This table has headers. The first column is the desired outcome, and the second column is the recommendation.

Desired outcomes	Recommendations
Increase ALES’s relevance to, and impact on, society	Create or support existing departmental external advisory committees Incentivize interdisciplinary research Develop sustainable funding partnerships for research Use the ongoing work on course and program rationalization and AI integration at the U of A to promote internal teaching innovation
Provide world class infrastructure for research and teaching	Create a vision + strategy for the future of research and teaching infrastructure (e.g. research farms, teaching labs etc.) in ALES Complete an infrastructure utilization and use review
Improve and enhance the student experience	Enable more experiential learning opportunities Use the ongoing work on course and program rationalization to review and improve program relevance
Effectively communicate ALES’s identity and activities	Explore an updated faculty name to reflect the breadth of ALES’s subject matter through an identity task force Further define and focus departmental and interdisciplinary areas of global excellence and growth Improve external communication of focus areas and impact Improve internal communication of faculty activities
Improve organizational effectiveness, accountability and resilience	Explore realigned department sizes and influence Create Dean’s advisory boards Develop and implement departmental renewal plans for key research and teaching roles Implement a high-performance organizational design Assign accountabilities and measures of success for the strategic plan Ensure clarity and understanding of existing workload policy and FEC standards Work with college and other university-wide services to improve service delivery Work with university-wide services to ensure onboarding and support for staff, faculty and students (particularly graduate students in partnership with Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies). Foster cross-department and cross-faculty relationships through structured and informal engagement

Next Steps

Implementation of the ALES Strategic Plan will begin in Fall 2025 and unfold progressively through 2028, following the academic cycle.

In the 2025–26 academic year, the faculty will focus on foundational actions that establish direction and enable early progress. These include:

• Establishing an accountability framework including of roles and responsibilities for implementing the strategic plan.
• Setting up regular communication back to the ALES internal and external community on progress against this plan.
• Creating internal and external advisory structures for the faculty through the Dean’s Advisory Board and Departmental Advisory Committees
• Launching the identity task force which will explore a renewed faculty name and seek to improve definition and communication of focus areas for the coming years.
• Exploring realigned department sizes and influence, including engagement with external stakeholders to steer this.
• Key reviews — such as infrastructure utilization, renewal plans and identifying opportunities to enable more experiential learning opportunities — will also be initiated during this period to inform future planning and partnerships.

In 2026–27, ALES will move into targeted execution of high-priority initiatives.

• Program relevance and curriculum flexibility will be addressed through program reviews and external consultations.
• Enhanced experiential learning opportunities will be piloted across undergraduate and graduate programs.
• Interdisciplinary research will be supported through internal seed funding and strategic partnership development.
• Planning and early action on a long-term infrastructure strategy, covering teaching labs, research farms, ranches, collaboration spaces and many more.
• Steps will be taken to improve support and onboarding processes, particularly for graduate students.

By 2027–28, successful initiatives will be scaled across departments and units:

• Key focus areas for ALES will be well defined across all departments and embedded in internal and external communications to support the faculty’s long-term goals.
• Updated curricula and enhanced student supports and opportunities will be implemented across all areas.
• Deeper research-industry partnership opportunities will have been identified and will be underway.
• A clear route forward will be mapped and underway for infrastructure upgrades and faculty renewal.
• Organization wide initiatives will be underway to improve transparency, deliver effective decision-making and support processes, and improve relationships between members of the ALES community and beyond.

Through this staged and academic-year-aligned approach, ALES will ensure that its strategy leads to lasting, measurable improvements in relevance, impact, and student experience.