External research funding for FES projects since 2000 has reached more than 10 million. This tells us what we already know: that research is at the heart of FES. The time and effort faculty members devote to securing research funding helps faculty and students engage in the innovative research that defines the Faculty, and the diversity and scope of the successful projects – and of the granting institutions – showcases the interdisciplinarity and the broad relevance of our work.
Funds raised though major grants, while designated for particular projects, benefit the entire Faculty. They help put FES in the spotlight by highlighting the work we do. They also help foster the general research culture in the Faculty. Research culture goes far beyond the amount of money raised from external sources, and it is clear from the wide array of seminar series, conferences and publications that emerge from the Faculty that FES has one of the most diverse and active research cultures at York. By showcasing the success of these major grant holders we celebrate the continuing development of that research culture and the many innovative and exciting activities it supports and inspires.
New projects
| Reconciling Canada: Non-Aboriginal Discourses and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission |
| Investigator: |
Ravi De Costa |
| Collaborator: |
Tom Clark, University of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia |
| Agency: |
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) |
| Terms: |
2010 (Extended/Renewal: 2011-2013) |
Description:
 |
The research explores non-Aboriginal attitudes towards Canadian reconciliation agenda
in an international-comparative perspective. It argues that reconciliation as both
public policy and social goal is highly dependent on a much greater consciousness of
the ideological processes of non-Aboriginal communities in Canada. Moreover, a key to
understanding reconciliation as both public policy and social goal is to explore public
discourse within a moment of concern or obligation (Wikimedia Commons file photo). |
| Mainstreaming the Ontario Renewable Energy Program within the Municipal and Private Sectors |
| Co-Investigators: |
Jose Etcheverry, Mark Winfield |
| Collaborators: |
Farid Bensebaa, Tyler Hamilton, and Peter Love |
| Agency: |
SSHRC |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
The project aims to support the application of sustainable energy policies and technologies in the development of the renewable energy market in Ontario. The activity is also aimed at expanding public knowledge about existing renewable energy programs and training graduate students on knowledge mobilization techniques focused on sustainable energy issues. |
| Taking Action II: Fostering Aboriginal Leadership in HIV Prevention Using Arts-Based Methods |
| Co-Investigators: |
Sarah Flicker and Jessica Yee (Native Youth Sexual Health Network) |
| Collaborators: |
June Larkin & Jean Paul Restoule (UofT), Claudia Mitchell (McGill), Randy Jackson (Canadian Aboriginal Aids Network), and Tracey Prentice (UofOttawa) |
| Agency: |
Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) |
| Terms: |
2008-2010 (Extension/Renewal: 2011-2014) |
Description:
 |
Taking Action II is a national project that aims to explore how Aboriginal youth are becoming HIV leaders in their communities and to understand HIV in the context of communities, culture and colonization. The initial research aimed to build aboriginal youth capacity in the areas of HIV prevention knowledge and resource development to address HIV issues in their local communities. It also examined the efficacy of engaging aboriginal youth in HIV prevention leadership using arts-based approaches). |
| Sharing Research Findings in the Canadian Arctic: Assessing the Integration of Inuit Knowledge in Policy Communications about Climate Change Related Food Insecurity |
| Co-Investigators: |
Rachel Hirsch and Martin Bunch |
| Agency: |
SSHRC |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
The research explores how integration of various types of knowledge – indigenous, local, government, scientific – facilitates or constrains communications about food insecurity decision making. The project will help link completed research, policies currently in place and being developed, and actual practices of communities all aimed at promoting ecological and human well-being in the face of changing environment. |
| Suburban Identities in the Global City Between Competition and Cooperation: Toronto and Frankfurt |
| Principal Investigator: |
Ute Lehrer |
| Co-Applicant: |
Roger Keil |
| Collaborators: |
Susanne Heeg, University of Frankfurt; Bernd Belina, University of Frankfurt |
| Agency: |
SSHRC |
| Term: |
2011-2014 |
Description:
 |
This research project brings together academics from York University in Toronto and from Goethe University in Frankfurt to examine how supportive policy environments in commercial and residential land development, security and transportation infrastructure are created in decentralized mid-size suburban municipalities in the Frankfurt and Toronto regions. The research will study how these municipalities react to the challenges of belonging geographically and functionally to a global city region (Wikimedia Commons file photo). |
| Assessing the Relationship between Internal Ferrous Iron Loading and Cyanobacteria Bloom Formation in Lake Winnipeg |
| Investigator: |
Lewis Molot |
| Agency: |
Environment Canada (EC) Lake Winnipeg Basin Stewardship Fund |
| Term: |
2010-2011 |
Description:
 |
The research aims to quantify internal loading rates of iron and phosphorus by measuring iron and phosphorus release from sediment cores collected at several stations throughout the study sites. The project will provide insights on the conditions that directly lead to bloom formation and will enhance research and monitoring capacity to assist in policy decision making at local and provincial levels (Wikimedia Commons file photo). |
| Quantification of the Internal Phosphorus Load in Lake Simcoe to Improve Phosphorus Budgets |
| Investigator: |
Lewis Molot |
| Agency: |
Environment Canada |
| Term: |
2010-2011 |
Description:
 |
The project assembles historical data, including oxygen and temperature profiles,
External phosphorus and water loads, to calculate, compare and determine contribution
to water total phosphorus concentration (Wikimedia Commons file photo). |
| Ontario EcoSchools |
| Investigator: |
Lewis Molot |
| Collaborators: |
Ontario District School Boards |
| Agency: |
Ontario Ministry of Education and Ontario Ministry of Environment |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
As part of the government’s strategic commitment to environmental education, the funding will be used to build capacity for environmental education and action in Ontario schools such as curriculum development, certification programs, upgrading French language resources, web development and outreach activities across the province. |
| Community-Based Environmental Education and Mobilization in Marginalized Urban Communities for Equitable Watershed Governance |
| Investigator: |
Ellie Perkins |
| Collaborator: |
Doorsteps Neighbourhood Services |
| Agency: |
SSHRC |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
The project will employ a participatory methodology focusing on urban watershed issues and challenges as identified by community members. The methods and materials developed in community-run workshops, and environmental and civic engagement initiatives with adults and seniors in neighborhoods near York will be disseminated nationally and internationally via community organizations’ websites as well as academic and professional publications. |
| Green Words, Green Worlds: Environmental Literatures and Politics in Canada |
| Investigator: |
Cate Sandilands |
| Collaborators: |
Ella Soper-Jones and Joshua Russell |
| Agency: |
SSHRC |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
This is a public forum, conference, and workshop sponsored by the Sustainable Writing Laboratory (SWL) to be held on October 21-23, 2011 at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto.
The conference-workshop aims to consider what politicizing the environmental aesthetic might mean in the context of public culture, politics, and the environmental imagination by Canadian writers and scholars on the subject of Canadian literatures.
|
| Exurbia and its impact on environment and politics in the Lake Simcoe Watershed |
| Co-Investigators: |
Laura Taylor and Martin Bunch |
| Agency: |
SSHRC |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
The study explores the impact of exurbia within the Lake Simcoe watershed. It takes a comprehensive look at the process of exurbanization and its impact on environment and politics in the area. Drawing on traditions from urban and regional planning, cultural geography, landscape ecology and political ecology, it considers the governance and land use planning context, landscape analysis including ecology, and analysis of residents’ attitudes towards local nature and the global environment. |
| Tracking Polar Bear Foraging Success in the Canadian Arctic |
| Investigator: |
Greg Thiemann |
| Agency: |
Kenneth Molson Foundation/York University Foundation |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
The project will monitor trends in foraging as well as nutritional conditions of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic. (Wikimedia Commons file photo). |
| Canadian Polar Bear Body Condition |
| Investigator: |
Greg Thiemann |
| Agency: |
Environment Canada |
| Term: |
2011-2012 |
Description:
 |
The project will monitor trends in the nutritional condition of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic and will examine the relationships between body condition and ongoing environmental change. |
| Building Substantive Transparency: Electoral Process, Oil Revenue and Democratic Governance in the Niger Delta of Nigeria and Gulf of Guinea |
| Co-Investigators: |
Anna Zalik and Ike Okonta |
| Collaborators: |
New Centre for Social Research and Social Action Integrated Development Centre, Nigeria |
| Agency: |
SSHRC |
| Term: |
2011-2014 |
Description:
 |
The central goal of the research is to examine the implications of initiatives seeking substantive transparency for democratic leadership shared prosperity and energy
security in Nigeria and globally. Grounded in the literature and conceptual
approaches to the political economy of oil, and democratization and development,
the research will identify prospects for innovative synergies between these different transparency initiatives to promote a more coherent regulatory framework and increased public access to information (Wikimedia Commons photo file). |
