Government of Canada announces funding for eight Environment-led research projects

Immigration and small communities: Exploring regional place-based settlement initiatives in Ontario and their impact on immigrant and community well-being

The Canadian government has launched new place-based settlement initiatives that promote immigrant settlement in small cities and rural areas. The benefits that immigrants bring to these communities include filling labour shortages, reviving the local economy, and generating increased service and infrastructure funding from the state. However, there is little research that examines other benefits that immigrant settlement can generate for communities, such as enhancing community well-being. As well, the existing literature also pays little attention to how changing settlement patterns impact the well-being of immigrants themselves.

This four-year study aims to examine the interaction between regional place-based settlement initiatives and the well-being of both immigrant and small communities in Ontario. The comparative case study uses mixed-methods approaches such as surveys, case studies, focus groups, and interviews, and will make contributions to the research community, policy­makers, and society more broadly. This will be the first study of its kind in Canada, and will initiate future research, policy and practice actions to accommodate the changing settlement patterns of Canada’s diverse immigrant population.

Transit-induced gentrification and displacement: centring tenant experiences in policy solutions to build and maintain affordable housing along new rapid transit lines

Building and maintaining affordable housing near good transit is one of the biggest challenges facing contemporary cities. The aim of this project is to examine how to achieve affordable housing outcomes along transit corridors through centring the experiences and knowledge of tenants within planning and policy making. It will do so by focusing on three major new transit corridors: the Hurontario LRT line in Mississauga/Brampton, Montreal’s Blue Line extension and Edmonton’s Valley Line LRT. The research will evaluate existing planning and policy measures to build and maintain affordable housing; analyze tenant experiences along new transit lines to understand how displacement happens; assess the impact of displacement pressure for tenants living along new transit lines; and develop a suite of planning and policy tools with tenants.

Looking 'Blackward' to the Future: Reclaiming the place of African American communities in Phoenix, AZ

The Blackward to the Future project is a community-led, participatory action research initiative to reclaim the past, present, and future of the African American community in Phoenix, Arizona. The project responds to the erasure of Black histories from the urban and cultural landscape of Phoenix, a city where dominant narratives often depict African Americans as newcomers and where archival materials documenting African American experiences constitute only 1% of historical records. By engaging community youth and elders in an intergenerational dialogue, the project aims to counteract these omissions, creating a space where Black voices are centered in developing a social memory and co-producing future urban visions. Drawing on the Adinkra concept of sankofa—the principle that looking to the past is essential for moving forward—the project takes a justice-oriented approach that combines historical documentation with future visioning and documentary film-making. Importantly, the project shifts away from damage-centered narratives. Instead, the Blackward to the Future projects explicitly foregrounds joy, resistance, and self-determination in understanding Black life in Phoenix.

Decarbonizing Finance: Frameworks and Tools for Institutional Divestment Strategies

This research examines fossil fuel divestment strategies as a critical tool to align financial practices with global climate goals. This project analyzes and compares the divestment strategies of banks and pension funds, focusing on motivations, engagement levels, and effectiveness in reducing reliance on fossil fuels. It will address key gaps, including limited understanding of divestment motivations, the absence of standardized metrics, and the need for practical tools to guide decision making. In a world urgently needing decarbonization, it promotes systemic change in financial practices.

Dietary shifts as climate mitigation: Understanding emerging trends and testing novel interventions

This grant will fund projects examining the complex interactions between emerging technologies, climate impacts, and food systems. Through two complementary research streams, we will investigate how technological innovations are reshaping consumer food behaviors and their environmental consequences.

The first project will focus on investigating the systemic effects of emerging pharmaceutical interventions on consumer food behaviors and their cascading environmental implications across agricultural and food distribution systems. 

The second project will explore the role of artificial intelligence systems in shaping consumer food decision-making processes and their potential to influence sustainable consumption patterns. This component will analyze how large language models could become influential factors in everyday decisions impacting the climate (including dietary choices), with particular attention to their capacity to promote or hinder environmentally sustainable food behaviors.