The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) announced nearly $10 million in Partnership Grants funding for four York University researchers, who study pressing societal issues from both local and global perspectives.  

Among the four Partnership Grants recipients being offered nearly $2.5 million each are two researchers from the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. The projects will span over six to seven years.  

Professor Leah Vosko, Department of Politics 

The project titled “Liberating Migrant Labour?: International Mobility Programs in Settler-Colonial Contexts” seeks to address policy gaps in international mobility programs, having identified a pressing need for investigation into the conditions and outcomes of such programs.  

Professor Richard Saunders, Department of Politics  

Saunders’ project “African Extractivism and the Greener Transition” will build on the insights of a multidisciplinary team of partners in place since 2018, to study the dynamics of minerals used in renewable energy technologies, found in Southern Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  

"In the 2022-23 competitions, York was the top institution in Canada in the SSHRC Partnership programs. LA&PS researchers' success was central to that achievement. Our excellent results in these programs in recent years attests to the strength of the Faculty's culture of community-based and partnered research,” said Ravi de Costa, associate dean, research and graduate studies, LA&PS. “Perhaps more importantly, the projects these awards will enable, will help advance the goals of the many partners our colleagues are working with, both here in Toronto and around the world, including Indigenous communities, migrant workers, artisanal miners and many others.”  

The SSHRC also announced $1.5 million funding under the Partnership Development Grants Program for 10 York researchers for collaboration with new or existing partners, and to design and test new partnership approaches. With a faculty success rate of 71.4%, five researchers from the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies were successfully offered funding.  

“These successes highlight the strength of our LA&PS researchers in building collaborative, community-engaged and impactful research partnerships,” said David Cuff, director, strategic research & partnerships, LA&PS. “These partnerships will make critically needed contributions to urgent challenges faced by people in Canada and across the globe.  

LA&PS 2022 SSHRC Partnership Development Grant recipients are: 

Anna Agathangelou, Department of Politics  

Building an International Partnership to Research and Address Reparative Justice in Post-Conflict Situations: Canada, Africa and Europe 

$176,127  

Nga Dao, Department of Social Science  

Slow violence and water (in)justice: Feminist political ecologies of intergenerational struggles in the Mekong region 

$199,689  

Anne MacLennan, Department of Communication & Media Studies  

Interrogating Canadian Identities/ L'identités canadiennes -- une interrogation (ICI) 

$173,836  

Christopher Kyriakides, Department of Sociology  

Refuge, Racisms, and Resistances: A Co-Created Analysis of the Experiences of Syrian and Ethiopian Refugees in Canada 

$196,426  

Abigail Shabtay, Department of Humanities  

Strengthening Participatory Drama-Based Research in Institutional, Community, and Educational Contexts 

$199,341  

The original announcement by York University is also available.