Starting in January 2026, we will initiate a transition process to establish a single primary location/method for ALL individual full-time faculty profiles/pages on the SMU.CA site. The transition will be a move to have all full-time faculty utilize the new SMU researcher profile system.
This change is part of a broader effort to streamline academic and research communications across and outside the university. Once the transition is complete, all existing profiles hosted on SMU.CA will be automatically redirected to the corresponding SMU research profiles, ensuring a seamless experience for users and visitors. Note that, within the new SMU researcher profile system, all faculty members are able to include a web-link that is directed to a different site (which may be a separately built person/research page, a research group or lab site, etc.) – our move is just to ensure that the new profiles represent the primary (“first stop”) location so that all professors can be found easily on the SMU.CA site.
The move to SMU research profiles offers several key benefits. It provides a centralized, standardized platform for managing academic profiles, making it easier for faculty to maintain up-to-date information about their publications, projects, teaching, and professional activities. With SMU research profiles, faculty only need to manage one profile, which can be used for internal reporting, public visibility, and collaboration across institutions. This reduces duplication of effort and ensures consistency in how research outputs are presented. The SMU research profile system will allow professors to “pull in” their publications from their ORCID iD profile or from their NSERC/SSHRC CCCV, to avoid re-entering them if they are already available in these other locations.
As part of the transition, all existing profile URLs on SMU.CA will be redirected to the new SMU research profiles, so there is no need to update existing profile links manually. This ensures continuity and preserves access to faculty information during and after migration. Over time, the Department faculty page listings/directories will be replaced with links to the new platform.
If you have information in a current profile or directory page that you would like to appear in your SMU research profile, please take the time to copy that information into your new profile.
We are approaching this transition as a phased process. To start, we will invite all full-time faculty to build their research profiles. To activate your SMU research profile account, please visit: https://researchprofile.smu.ca/network/home AND click “login” from the top right of the page.
The system has a single sign-in, so once you have activated your account, you will be able to access your profile page. If you are a SMU full-time faculty member, and you cannot sign in to access your profile page, please email Dr. Sarty, AVP Research, at dean.fgsr@smu.ca to get your access set up properly. Also, as you complete your profile, if you have any questions, please contact the SMU Software and Application Support Center (SaS) team at sas@smu.ca
All questions about the SMU research profile system will help the SaS team create a future FAQ page. We don’t have an FAQ page built yet, but as SMU professors work through setting up their profiles and ask questions when things are not obvious, this page will be built! (The first FAQ can be noted here: when entering a link to direct toward a different webpage as referred to above – a personal or research webpage, or research group/lab page – ensure to enter the FULL address starting with https://www.”, otherwise it doesn’t work!).