Celebrate Research Week culminates on Friday, March 10 at 1 p.m. with an insightful presentation by Alex Usher, post-secondary education expert and author of the widely followed and occasionally controversial ‘One Thought to Start Your Day’ blog.  Usher will be joined by Phil Barker, vice-principal research, for a focussed Q&A on innovation.

Click here for details.

Celebrate Research Week 2017 Event Schedule

Monday, March 6

BRAES Institute Open House & Poster Session

Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience, and Ecosystems Services (BRAES) members will present posters about their research projects. Come browse and learn about the great work being done in ecology, biodiversity, conservation, and environmental sustainability on UBC’s Okanagan campus.

Time: 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Location: Science building third-floor hallway

UBC Engineering Research Night

Speakers: Shahria Alam, Liwei Wang and Jian Liu
Time: 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Location: Engineering, Management & Education Building, EME 1151

Tuesday, March 7

Rural health in rural hands: Building partnerships with a regional alliance for health research

Presented by the Institute for Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention

Join us to identify ways to build action-oriented, community-engaged research collaborations that strengthen health and wellbeing in rural communities and enrich educational programs.

Time: 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Location: ART 219
Presenters: Joan Bottorff, Mike Chiasson, Judy Gillespie, and Betty Brown 

Wednesday, March 8

Institute for Community Engaged Research Open House

Time: 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Location: Arts building, room ART 368

Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Final

Graduate student competitors have just three minutes and one slide to share the depth, significance, and wider-impact of their research with the judges and audience for a chance to win top honours and prize money.

Time: 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Location: University Centre Ballroom, room UNC 200

To find out more, visit: 3mt.ok.ubc.ca 

Thursday, March 9

UBC-KEDGE Wine Industry Collaboration

Presented by the Regional Socio-Economic Development Institute of Canada

Bring your lunch and join us for an overview of the UBC-KEDGE Wine Industry Collaboration – a partnership involving KEDGE Business School (Bordeaux, France) that has brought together

BC wine producers and international wine management expertise.

Time: 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Location: Engineering, Management & Education building, room EME 4116
Presenters: Kim Buschert, Malida Mooken and Marcela Valania

For more information about UBC-Kedge Wine Industry Collaboration, visit: ubckedgewine.ca

Café Scientifique: Side-stepping the effects of stroke

Time: 5 to 7 p.m.
Location: Okanagan Regional Library, 1380 Ellis St., Kelowna
Free registration: sidestepstroke.eventbrite.ca

Friday, March 10

Alex Usher Presents: Trends Affecting Higher Education in Canada

Time: 1 to 2 p.m.
Location: Engineering, Management & Education building, room EME 0050

For more information visit: celebrateresearch.ok.ubc.ca/schedule/usher

Friday and Saturday, March 10 and 11

School District No. 23 District Science Fair

Young scientists will be on UBC’s Okanagan campus to participate in the two-day School District No. 23 District Science Fair. Students individually and in pairs interpret their science projects for judges and public viewers.

Times: Friday — 4 to 7:30 p.m.; Saturday — 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Location: Various locations, including the Engineering, Management & Education building’s Richard S. Hallisey Atrium

For more information visit: sd23sciencefair.com

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Seth Klein, BC director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, shares how our province can become carbon-zero and generate green jobs.

Tues., Oct. 11 | 7 p.m. | Schubert Centre, Vernon.

Presented in part by UBC’s Institute for Community Engaged Research and Community, Culture and Global Studies. Drop-in. Suggested donation: $5.

To find out more, visit: icer.ok.ubc.ca/events

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Immigrant entrepreneurs are more optimistic about doing business in Kelowna than those born in Canada, a UBC study shows.

The study, “Sustaining Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Small- and Medium-sized Cities”, was conducted by UBC Okanagan Prof. Carlos Teixeira in 2009 and 2010. The study was done in collaboration with York University Professor Lucia Lo and recently published in the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies.

“Immigrants were actually more optimistic about the future of their business even though they expressed running a business in Kelowna was difficult,” says Teixeira, who teaches community, culture and global studies in the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences. “While a total of 62 per cent of immigrants believed their business would grow moving forward, only 38 per cent of non-immigrant entrepreneurs shared that optimism.

“Interestingly, when asked about their plans for the future, nearly 35 per cent of Canadian-born entrepreneurs thought they’d be out of business compared to just over 15 per cent of immigrants.”

The most common form of satisfaction in running their own business cited by both groups was independence.

The most common challenge cited was the ability to find good and reliable employees.

In a difference of opinion, 50 per cent of immigrant entrepreneurs felt government red tape was a major challenge in running a business compared to Canadian-born business people.

Non-immigrant entrepreneurs cited high operating costs as a major challenge, while only 18 per cent of their counterparts found that a problem.

If Canada hopes to attract entrepreneurs through immigration to areas outside the major centres of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, adds Teixeira, governments should consider some changes.

Changes could include greater cooperation between governments, economic development organizations and post-secondary institutions, as well as closer integration among municipal governments, he says.

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What: Digital Bodies, Gender, and Violence
Who: Tegan Zimmerman, Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Okanagan College
When: Tuesday, March 8, 4 to 5 p.m.
Where: EME 1202, Engineering, Management and Education Building, UBC Okanagan

To mark International Women’s Day, UBC Okanagan is hosting a talk about the proliferation of online and digital gendered violence and its effect on society.

Okanagan College Professor of English and Women’s Studies Tegan Zimmerman says it is imperative that gender theorists reconsider and assess the digital body as it is currently portrayed. Zimmerman will analyze instances of digital violence against women such as Photoshopped images in magazines, sexploitation on social media, and virtual rape in video games like Grand Theft Auto V.

This event, presented by UBC Okanagan’s Community, Culture and Global Studies unit, is free and open to the public. Pay parking is available on campus. A pizza social takes place directly afterwards.

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E-journal founded a decade ago grows from risky venture to global success

The idea was to provide open access to a body of works by some of the great minds of the world, and it worked.

Lawrence Berg is co-founder of ACME – An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, which is now celebrating its 10^th year anniversary.  ACME is an online international academic journal for critical analyses of the social, the spatial and the political. The journal’s purpose is to provide a forum for the publication of critical work about space in the social sciences.

Berg, co-director of the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice and a faculty member in Community, Culture and Global Studies with the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, says “the journal has a focus on critical theory in human geography, it is published in five languages, and it is free to anyone with access to the Internet.”

“It’s a peer-reviewed scholarly journal,” says Berg, adding each manuscript is reviewed by three referees and meets rigorous scholarly standards before publication is granted.

“Ninety per cent of the time a manuscript is rejected the first time it is submitted for review. That’s pretty standard,” says Berg.  Of the 140 or so manuscripts submitted each year, about 35 to 40 meet publishing criteria, ensuring only the highest-quality pieces make it into the journal.

From its humble beginnings a decade ago, when Berg did not know how the site would be received or who would provide copy, ACME now receives submissions from around the world.

“The people accessing the journal online are from more than 160 different countries,” says Berg. The website for the journal now receives more than 220,000 visits and 140,000 article downloads per year.

Funding for the journal is currently provided by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; with the money being used to fund UBC PhD student Levi Gahman to work as the assistant editor for the journal.

Berg is also co-founder of Praxis (e)Press, an open access e-book publishing house that seeks to publish critical works in theory and practice in human geography from a variety of different theoretical perspectives.

The Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice Press, is a third open-access publisher located in the Centre, and it specializes in more local and regional content.

“People publish books with Praxis and CSSEJ Presses because they want open access. People publish with ACME because they want open access,” says Berg, adding the driving force behind the publishing ventures is to pass knowledge along to the widest possible audience using open-access publishing, and thereby make it accessible to everyone.

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Indigenous Studies Prof. Tirso Gonzales from UBC’s Okanagan campus and Prof. Miquel Gonzalez from York University have organized a virtual forum for international consultation and dialogue, taking place each Monday from Sept. 5 to Oct. 5. The forum involves leaders of indigenous organizations, academics, non-governmental partners, and officials of sub-national government entities who are leading processes in the design and negotiation of indigenous autonomy in different countries of Latin America and Canada.

The Indigenous Peoples, Self-determination and Autonomy in Latin America and Canada forum is a project of the Bolivian Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies, the International Secretary for Human Development at York University, and the Indigenous Studies Program  at UBC’s Okanagan campus. It is a follow up to the course Indian Self-Determination and Autonomy in Latin America and Canada, which took place during July and August, attended by 19 professionals, academics, policy makers, Indigenous leaders and community members from Argentina, Bolivia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Spain, the United States, Honduras and Peru.

The forum and related activities are in preparation for the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, which will be held here at UBC’s Okanagan campus next May 18 to 20.

To find out more, visit: www.cebem.org/boletines/bol_2011/extras/boletin_6.php

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The campus community and the public are invited to participate in a day of discussion at UBC’s Okanagan campus about neoliberalism and post-welfare Nordic states. Seven experts from four universities in Iceland, Sweden and Denmark are visiting on April 11 for a workshop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Arts building ART 218.

Presenters and topics at the public workshop include:

• Edward H. Huijbens, University of Akureyri, Iceland (Building Nordic welfare in a post-crash economy)
• Kirsten Simonsen, Roskilde University, Denmark, (Encountering racism in the post-welfare state – Danish experiences)
• Lasse Koefoed Martin, Roskilde University, Denmark, (Majority/minority nationalism in the Danish post-welfare state)
• Anders Lund Hansen, Lund University, Sweden (Fighting for the urban commons in the post-political Nordic welfare state)
• Henrik Gutzon Larsen, Aalborg University, Denmark, (The housing question revisited in the transitional Danish post-welfare state)
• Guy Baeten, Lund University, Sweden, (Swedish neoliberal cities in ‘post-neoliberal’ times)
• Eric Clark, Lund University, Sweden, (Neoliberalizing the Swedish welfare state – the human consequences)

“These are some of the top geography researchers from the Nordic countries, and this should be of wide interest among social science faculty members,” says the workshop’s organizer, Associate Professor of Geography Lawrence Berg, co-director of the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice at UBC’s Okanagan campus.

The ‘Nordic welfare state’ has long been an international model of successful social democratic governance, with high standards of living as a result of a ‘cradle-to-grave’ welfare state, Berg says. In recent years, the global rise of neoliberalism (also known as the ‘free market’ model of social and economic governance) has dramatically changed the Nordic welfare state.

“Governments across the Nordic states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have shifted to the political right and in so doing they have begun a slow but inexorable dismantling of the welfare state,” says Berg. “This workshop will offer an opportunity to learn more about the social and spatial implications of the rise of neoliberalism in the Nordic countries.”

Funding for this workshop is provided by: the Cultural Studies program in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies; Unit 6 (Economics, History, Philosophy, Political Science and Sociology) and the Office of the Dean of the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences; Community Culture and Global Studies; Office of the Provost; and the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice.

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Social science researcher Michael Evans and biochemistry researcher Susan Murch have been honoured as co-recipients of the 2009-2010 UBC Okanagan Researcher of the Year award.

“I am proud to say that we could not pick only one recipient for the award — the committee chose two very deserving co-recipients to share the award,” noted UBC Okanagan Provost and Vice-Principal Alaa Abd-El-Aziz, at the university’s Celebrate Research Week gala Monday night.

Evans, head of the Community, Culture and Global Studies at UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, was recognized for promoting and leading valuable interdisciplinary collaborations among academic and community researchers.

A leading researcher in applied social sciences and Indigenous research, Evans has developed significant research relationships with people in the Métis community in Northern B.C., the Métis Nation of B.C., the urban Aboriginal community of the Okanagan Valley, and Tonga in the South Pacific.

“He strives to take creative and innovative approaches to research, and the outputs of his research have been incredibly meaningful and useful to the community,” said Abd-El-Aziz.

Murch is a Canada Research Chair in Natural Products Chemistry, and was cited as an exemplary researcher both nationally and internationally.

“She has impressive publication and citation records, and is continuously involved in conferences and events all over the world,” said Abd-El-Aziz. “In addition, she is committed to conducting research that addresses issues of global concern.”

One of those global issues is food security. Murch’s lab has developed innovative new ways to produce disease-free breadfruit plants for long-term conservation and worldwide distribution. Historically, this important food plant has been very difficult to move from location to location, but with these new propagation techniques, breadfruit could soon help feed people in the tropics who otherwise do not have enough to eat.

“This week has been about sharing exciting research that is taking place here in the Okanagan, at your university,” said Doug Owram, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal at UBC’s Okanagan campus. He noted that UBC is shaping the region in many ways – through expanding research programs, as an important economic driver, and contributor to the social and cultural lives of our community. “And perhaps our most powerful impact is that we are preparing today’s students to be tomorrow’s leaders,” he said.

The research awards gala was held at the Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna, with CBC Radio Daybreak South host Marion Barschel serving as master of ceremonies. In addition to the Researcher of the Year award, more than a dozen researchers were recognized for earning major research awards in social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and engineering during the past year.

In 2007-2008 UBC Okanagan researchers developed more than 300 successful proposals, worth $8.3 million in funding. In 2008-2009 there were 348 successful applications, drawing more than $10 million in research funding.

“These statistics are a reflection of the growing and thriving research community at UBC Okanagan, and the ongoing commitment and dedication of our researchers,” said Abd-El-Aziz.

Christopher Schneider, assistant professor of sociology, was honoured for outstanding service to the university and the community by actively and creatively sharing his research expertise via the news media.

“Not only has Chris Schneider been incredibly active in the news media, participating in numerous print, radio and television interviews, but he has gone above and beyond to establish a community accessible dialogue,” said Bonnie Bates Gibbs, Director of Alumni and University Relations, in announcing the Provost’s Award for Public Education Through Media.

Schneider hosts a public discussion every Sunday evening from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Bean Scene on Bernard Ave. in downtown Kelowna. For more information about The Sunday Sociologist, see http://www.sundaysociologist.com/.

“He has truly taken his role as an educator beyond the classroom and into the community,” said Bates Gibbs.

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A new study by UBC Okanagan researchers partnering with local Aboriginal Friendship Centres has investigated the relationship between the urban Aboriginal population in the Okanagan Valley and the region’s mainstream social service and healthcare delivery systems.

Results of the project indicate that Aboriginal People feel excluded from mainstream services.

“Previous research from other communities suggests that urban Aboriginal people often fall through the cracks in both health and social service delivery,” said principal investigator Michael Evans, Head of Community, Culture and Global Studies, and co-director of the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice (CSSEJ) at UBC Okanagan. “The results of this project confirmed those earlier findings.”

Project researchers decided to undertake a qualitative study that provided for extensive discussions with urban Aboriginal people about their experiences in the healthcare system. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Barriers to Health and Social Service Delivery for Urban Aboriginal People in the Okanagan Valley study began in 2006 and involved 20 co-investigators, collaborators, and research assistants.

Fifty members of the urban Aboriginal community were interviewed in the research project: 10 from Penticton, and 20 each from Kelowna and Vernon.

Researchers felt that it was especially important to learn about the experiences of urban Aboriginal people, because many are not eligible for on-reserve services.

Evans said researchers discovered that Aboriginal organizations like Friendship Centres often fill the cracks in the mainstream systems and they provide both health and social services to urban Aboriginal people, thus placing greater stress on already under-funded programs and services.

“More importantly, an overwhelming majority of participants described their experiences in mainstream social service and healthcare systems in very negative terms,” said co-investigator Lawrence Berg, Associate Professor and co-director of the CSSEJ at UBC Okanagan. “Participants often described their experiences in terms of feeling alienated, excluded, marginalized and discriminated against because of their identity as Aboriginal people.”

Researchers believe that the experiences point to significant need for change in social service and healthcare delivery in the Okanagan.

“While all users of these services would be exposed to some of the negative experiences described by participants,” said Berg, “many of the problems are clearly related to the fact that Aboriginal people often appear to be treated differently in both the social service and healthcare systems.”

For more information, visit the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice at UBC Okanagan (www.chrdi.org/CSSEJ/cssejsite).

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