Eight Arts-led research excellence clusters will be funded through the Research Excellence Clusters initiative in 2022/23. These clusters are inter-departmental networks of researchers at UBC who collectively represent leaders in a particular field of study. Clusters are recognized as either established or emerging depending on multiple factors relating to their developmental stage and funding requirements. Funding is awarded through Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters (GCRC) competitions.
Established Clusters
Migration
Migration presents complex challenges and opportunities for governments, societies and the international community. Bringing together researchers from a wide range of disciplines, UBC Migration seeks to understand and engage in debate about the causes, consequences and experiences of global human mobility through research, education and outreach.
Cluster Lead: Antje Ellermann (Political Science)
Women’s Health
The Women’s Health Research Cluster is a network of women’s health researchers and stakeholders that are interested in how sex and gender play a role in health outcomes. We work towards creating a future where women can live equitably healthy lives by promoting, expanding, and catalyzing impactful research on women’s health
Cluster Lead: Liisa Galea (Psychology)
Decision Insights for Business & Society
Individual decisions are a critical part of both the causes and solutions for our most urgent societal and planetary challenges (e.g., the climate crisis, income inequality, and decolonization). DIBS uses decision science to better understand decision-making, encourage long-term behaviour change, and work toward an environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable future.
Cluster Lead: Jiaying Zhao (Psychology)
Emerging Clusters
Climate Justice Partnerships
Climate Justice Partnerships facilitate collaboration between frontline communities experiencing climate impacts and the UBC research community. As a research arm of the Centre for Climate Justice, this trans-disciplinary collaborative conducts community-driven research focused on unequal impacts of warming, and develops innovative policy responses to advance equitable and just climate action.
Cluster Lead: Naomi Klein (Geography)
Disaster Resilience Research Network
The UBC Disaster Resilience Research Network intends to build transdisciplinary connections and identify shared research goals to inform disaster risk reduction policy and decision making at community and governance levels. The cluster aims to advance multi-hazard assessment and mitigation in support of an inclusive and equitable development of just disaster risk management.
Cluster Leads: Sara Shneiderman (SPPGA; Anthropology) and Carlos Molina Hutt (Civil Engineering)
Memory as Transformative in the Afterlives of Mass Violence
Memories of political violence is often conceptualized as a documentation of, and challenge to, silenced pasts. A collective of scholars, artists and practitioners, we reconsider memory as a generative force to challenge oppressive presents and re-imagine ways of being together through reciprocal, emplaced and digital knowledge exchanges.
Cluster Leads: Pilar Riaño-Alcalá (GRSJ) & Erin Baines (SPPGA)
Relational Technologies: Land, Sovereignty, and Language in Community-Led Immersive Storytelling
The Relational Technologies research cluster brings collaborative interdisciplinary teams together to support community-led cultural survivance through immersive and interactive storytelling. Partnerships among community-based research leads, technical experts at and beyond UBC, and campus venues for knowledge exchange will focus on emergent digital tools and technologies for mapping, gaming, and curating stories.
Cluster Leads: Daisy Rosenblum (FNEL) & David Gaertner (FNIS)
UBC Shakespeare First Folio
This research cluster is centred on UBC’s newly acquired copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio. The cluster seeks to catalyze research collaborations, interdisciplinary partnerships, artistic creations, and community engagement, ensuring that the First Folio will be a valuable research tool, pedagogical tool, and a site for public engagement.
Cluster Lead: Hallie Marshall (Theatre and Film)