The Government of British Columbia has announced new funding through the B.C. Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF) to support research infrastructure and foster innovation across the province.
As part of this investment, five Faculty of Arts–led projects at UBC have received BCKDF support—strengthening research capacity in areas ranging from archaeology and linguistics to psychology, geography, and computational social science. Together, these projects demonstrate how Arts research contributes to innovation, social well-being, environmental sustainability, and interdisciplinary discovery.
This funding is delivered through the Province’s Look West plan for jobs and industry, which aims to build a more resilient and self-sufficient economy by accelerating major projects, diversifying markets, and growing priority sectors such as technology, AI and quantum, life sciences, and climate-related innovation. Arts-led research plays a role in this vision by advancing human-centred, socially responsive, and globally relevant scholarship.
A total of $15.4 million was invested into 71 UBC-led projects through the BCKDF.
UBC Arts-led projects
Aleksa Alaica (Department of Anthropology)
Multispecies Archaeology Laboratory (MSAL)
Establishing new lab infrastructure to support innovative archaeological research that foregrounds relationships between humans, animals, and environments.
Joan Danielle Ongchoco (Department of Psychology)
An Integrative Approach towards Understanding Intelligence: Bridging the ‘Seeing’ versus ‘Thinking’ Divide
Developing advanced research infrastructure to explore how perception and cognition interact—advancing foundational knowledge of human intelligence.
McKenzie Kuhn (Department of Geography)
Advanced infrastructure for studying greenhouse gas cycling in under-represented Arctic-boreal ecosystems
Supporting cutting-edge environmental research on climate processes in northern ecosystems that are critical to understanding global climate change.
Amori Mikami (Department of Psychology)
Encouraging Peers’ Social Inclusion of Children with ADHD
Enhancing research capacity to study social inclusion and peer relationships, with implications for child development, education, and mental health.
Jian Zhu (Department of Linguistics)
Computational social science at SLIME-Lab
Expanding computational infrastructure to support data-driven research on language, social behaviour, and communication.
The B.C. Knowledge Development Fund supports the development of research infrastructure—such as labs, equipment, and technology—that enables innovation and collaboration with industry and community partners. By investing in this infrastructure, the Province is strengthening post-secondary institutions’ capacity to contribute to a more innovative, sustainable, and inclusive future for British Columbia.
