About PAC

Meeting Global Challenges

(l-r) Kelsey Song, Adeel Yousufani and Jessica Lin sit at table outside

 

Professional accounting is essential to the generation, accuracy, and credibility of financial and non-financial information used for making decisions and investments, calculating taxes, and scoring impacts deemed important by society.  This requires an understanding of context and of information generating techniques, as well as appropriate decision making approaches and the factors influencing them. The generation of credible and accurate financial information also requires objective judgement and a dedication to the public interest.  Knowledge alone is not sufficient – to ensure reasonable outcomes, judgement and adherence to a set of ethical standards are required in the application of that knowledge.

Professional accounting has entered a period of many challenges, characterized by globalization, heightened investor expectations, and increasing litigation. Pressures exist for the development of standard globalized practices that are both practical and defensible as well as behaviour that corresponds to high global expectations and regulations. As a result, new developments are needed within professional accounting in many countries, including Canada, such as the harmonization of new and former accounting standards, practices, and practice values. 

High quality research on these matters is essential to maintain excellence in professional accounting.  As a result, the Professional Accounting Centre (PAC) was established at the University of Toronto Mississauga in 2014 to promote research and discussion related to professional accounting.  The university has been a leader in accounting education and, for many years, its top-ranked programs have supplied the largest number of graduates into the field of professional accounting in the Province of Ontario.  Now, with the establishment of PAC, the University of Toronto Mississauga has taken another deliberate step in its commitment to advancing the accounting profession.  

With a mission to stimulate research and discussion on the issues facing professional accounting through a variety of initiatives, PAC and its research will focus on the professional accounting mandate, role, ethics, standards, behaviour, and techniques involved in preparing and providing high quality data for users and providing assurance of its credibility.  Research findings will benefit the scholarly community as well as the profession and its stakeholders worldwide. In addition, it will inform instructors and enhance the curricula of graduate and undergraduate programs at U of T Mississauga and beyond.

Through the establishment of PAC, U of T Mississauga has created a space where researchers, professional accountants, and regulators from around the world can launch and discuss research on the challenges facing professional accounting and disseminate relevant findings.  Through its significant research contributions to the profession, PAC will attract pioneering faculty and students who want to be associated with programs of recognized leadership.