Five Research Excellence Clusters led by UBC Arts researchers will receive support in 2026/27.
These interdisciplinary networks bring researchers together to tackle societal and cultural challenges that go beyond traditional departmental, institutional, and funding boundaries.
At UBC Vancouver, funding for these clusters is provided through the Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters (GCRC).
Centre for Queer and Trans Cultural Praxis (New Cluster)
The expansion of anti-queer and anti-trans legislation and the resurgence of reactionary politics have rendered queer and trans life increasingly precarious. Yet, queer and trans artists continue to generate aesthetic, embodied, and narrative practices to both resist contemporary forms of state violence, and insist on imagining and building alternative modes of relation, belonging, and futurity. This cluster brings together faculty, graduate students, and community-based artists working across the humanities, social sciences, and creative arts to center these practices as more than just artistic outputs, to study them as methods of thought, forms of collective learning, and infrastructures of survival.
Cluster Co-leads: Jasbir Puar (Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice) and Ervin Malakaj (Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies)
Critical Image Forum
Critical Image Forum (CIF) is an interdisciplinary research cluster that focuses on the political, ethical, aesthetic and social dimensions of photography, image archives, and expanded documentary practices. CIF’s research outcomes are concerned with photographic literacy and pedagogy, as well as with supporting interdisciplinary research/creation for faculty and student members, and community researchers. We partner with local, regional, and national organizations to support collaborative projects and public programming. Our 2026-2028 course of research focuses on critical approaches to image archives, collections and networks.
Cluster Co-leads: Althea Thauberger (Art History, Visual Art, and Theory) & Kelly McCormick (History)
Sovereignty in a Fractious Age (New Cluster)
Sovereignty is an increasingly urgent topic in our current moment. It is striking that concepts and practices of sovereignty are being broadly reconfigured as groups of scholars, journalists, and members of the public have started to place it at the centre of how they understand the contemporary world. At UBC, many scholars research aspects of sovereignty, but have not engaged with each other. This cluster brings together UBC scholars from multiple disciplines to discuss digital, cultural, and territorial sovereignty. Revisiting and re-imagining sovereignty is crucial as this scholarship can have significant and near-term impact for the present.
Cluster Co-leads: Katherine Bowers (Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies) and Heidi Tworek (History)
The Black Pacific and the Critical Tradition of Black Studies (New Cluster)
This project seeks to establish a structure at UBC for critical engagement with Black Studies as an intellectual, political, and cultural project using the specific location of the Black Pacific — that is, the geography of Black Vancouver and British Columbia — as crossroads for global Black intellectual life. Through a set of campus and community events, including a series of workshops, monthly community “Saturday Schools,” public lectures, print publication projects, and arts-based performances and exhibits, we aim to interrogate the conceptual and epistemological foundations of Black studies in a global context, sharing research priorities and pedagogical strategies.
Cluster Lead: Jemima Pierre (Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice)
UBC Cluster for Indigenous Engagement, Development and Research: Pandemic Preparedness (P2)
Despite experiencing inequitable impacts, many Indigenous people and communities have thrived during the health emergencies by returning to traditional cultural practices and ways of being. Health research often ignores these strengths and misses opportunities to equip Indigenous communities for health emergencies like pandemics. The best way to prepare Indigenous communities for health emergencies is to help them thrive in their daily lives. This means ensuring the resources and supports for Indigenous people are in place. Our Indigenous-led research cluster pursues this goal by investing in partnerships and networks with Indigenous scholars and communities.
Cluster Lead: Kimberly Huyser (Sociology)
