Northeastern University and the University of Victoria partner on new Applied AI Innovation Alliance

Northeastern University in Vancouver and the University of Victoria are separated by the Strait of Georgia, and little else. Since the Vancouver campus’s founding in 2019, students, faculty, and ideas have flowed across the 50 kilometers of water, interrupted only by a few bureaucratic headaches and a two-hour ferry ride. The ferry isn’t going anywhere, but the headaches are; starting in the summer of 2026, the launch of the Applied AI Innovation Alliance will formalize collaboration pathways and expand opportunities in AI for students, faculty, and industry partners on both sides of the strait.

It’s really important that we branch out and look for partners all over the province, and this partnership with Northeastern opens up all sorts of possibilities.

“The relationship between UVic and Northeastern have been there since Northeastern Vancouver’s inception,” said Bethany Edmunds, Northeastern University’s Associate Dean of Computing Programs for the West Coast. “It’s been organic; now, we’re putting the paperwork to it.”

Because the new Alliance codifies natural collaborations between the two campuses, many of the opportunities it creates are already in demand. As soon as Fall ‘26, students will be able to register for certain classes on one another’s campuses, and industry partners will see more opportunities to work with collaborative student teams. At the same time, faculty can expect expanded access to both schools’ hardware and data resources, and to qualify for a wider range of research funding opportunities.

But the most tangible opportunities may belie the Alliance’s true potential. Creating a structure for previously informal collaborations means the schools can replicate their successes at scale, allowing AI education, research, and talent development to be guided by industry needs and academic curiosity, not by boundaries between institutions.

For example, students from Northeastern in Vancouver have previously worked with the Maritime Museum of Vancouver, using AI to build a tugboat simulator that lets children explore a key part of the area’s shipping industry. The project taught the students to prototype solutions and collaborate with stakeholders, and provided the museum with an immersive new attraction. . As an inaugural Alliance industry partner the Maritime Museum has a direct, priority line to students at both schools who want to learn to build digital education tools on their behalf, making it far easier to run similar projects on a more regular basis.

“Industry stakeholders are coming to the table and going, ‘Okay, we’re going to incorporate AI workflows into what we’re doing – who’s going to help us out with this?’ Well, guess what – our students are the perfect people!” said visiting professor Yvonne Coady, who is dually appointed between Northeastern in Vancouver and the University of Victoria. The process established by the Alliance will make dual appointments like Coady’s significantly easier to accomplish. “I’m super excited to be able to say to students, ‘hey, your opportunities are expanding here’.”

In addition to the Maritime Museum of Vancouver, the Alliance is in talks with a dozen other nonprofits, institutions, and industry members about becoming inaugural industry partners.

The new Alliance will also give the schools’ collaborative events – like last year’s ACM Cascadian Women in Computing conference – the infrastructure to scale up. Working as a single Alliance simplifies the bureaucratic process, freeing up time to plan innovative events like the Creator Jam that will be co-hosted by the Indigenomics Institute’s Carol Ann Hinton this summer.

Edmunds is excited by the way the Applied AI Innovation Alliance lays the structural groundwork for students, faculty, and industry partners to move more seamlessly through the region’s tech ecosystem. She also appreciates how it helps a global school like Northeastern tailor its approach to the Vancouver campus’s unique context. Collaborating with experienced local academic partners like the University of Victoria, and deeply embedded industry leaders like the Indigenomics Institute, has helped her appreciate the unique complexity and possibilities of a Canadian-first approach.

“What does inclusive computing look like in Canada?” Edmunds asked. “We’re recognizing that when we say computer science for everyone here, we cannot even have that conversation without thinking about how Indigenous people can lead in their own way. And we have people on the island that are just now getting internet connectivity – how do they participate in computer science? It’s a really big question.”

For Colin Bradley, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Victoria, the Alliance is exciting because of how much it broadens his students’ access to technical expertise and hands-on learning opportunities.

“We need students and graduates, who are going to be highly knowledgeable about both the strengths and the dangers of AI,” Bradley said. “It’s really important that we branch out and look for partners all over the province, and this partnership with Northeastern opens up all sorts of possibilities.”

But for Coady – who both Edmunds and Bradley credit as one of the strongest voices behind the initiative – the real heart of the Applied AI Innovation Alliance is in who it will bring together.

“I’m excited to be working with two groups of faculty members who are really, enthusiastically supporting students in our region,” Coady said. “I’m sort of the luckiest person in the world.”

By Madelaine Millar