Six faculty members with the UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs have received funding through the Research Excellence Clusters initiative in 2022/23, among the forty research excellence clusters led by researchers on the Vancouver campus. 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.
Learn more below:
Director and Professor Allison Macfarlane and Professor Nadja Kunz (SPPGA; Mining Engineering)
The Future Minerals Working Group
The UBC Future Minerals Working Group will bring together researchers and non-academic partners to re-imagine the global mineral resource sector. Drawing on expertise in Earth sciences and engineering, law, economics and public policy, we seek to drive technical innovation and reframe the social, and environmental context of mineral resources.
Cluster Lead: Philippe Tortell
Professor Sara Shneiderman (SPPGA; Anthropology)
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 and Carlos Molina Hutt
Professor M. V. Ramana
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
Professor Rashid Sumaila (SPPGA; Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries)
Cluster for Microplastics
Recognizing that microplastics can adversely impact ecological and human health, global food security and economy, the cluster will tackle research gaps and accelerate knowledge exchange on microplastics pollution towards informing timely science-based mitigation solutions and policies for the preservation of environment, global biodiversity and human well-being.
Cluster Lead: Maite Maldonado-Pareja
Visit the website
Professor Erin Baines
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 and Erin Baines
Visit the website
