TORONTO, August 28, 2008 -- Researchers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at York University have been awarded over $10 million from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The grants, part of $202.2 million in funding and awards announced on August 28, 2008, will support York research that improves the quality of life of Canadians while addressing important socio-cultural and economic issues.
“SSHRC’s investment in humanities and social sciences research allows our scholars to contribute substantially to Canada’s knowledge base, to our culture and to our quality of life,” said Stan Shapson, York University’s vice-president research & innovation. “This basic research helps us to better understand the world around us and the most pressing societal issues of our time.”
Forty-three York faculty research projects received $3.37 million through SSHRC’s Standard Research Grants program, an increase of 24 per cent in funding over 2007 results.
Their projects cover a range of disciplines and include research into:
· The role race and gender play in illness, injury and violence in nursing workplaces
· Developing Internet ethnography for marketing research
· Gender and digital gameplay
· The causes and goal-regulation mechanisms of religious extremism
· How humanitarian NGOs visually represent distant suffering
· Ecological restoration and the aggregate product cycle in Toronto
The competition also included special calls for proposals in management, business and finance, through which six York researchers secured a total of $822,247. In addition, three York Professors were awarded $104,830 in research development initiatives.
Graduate students and doctoral fellows also benefited from the announcements: 139 York master’s and doctoral students have won $5.87 million in scholarships and fellowships. In all, 2,405 graduate and postdoctoral projects across Canada received a total of $97.9 million.
“These awards also build upon our earlier success this year in SSHRC’s strategic knowledge cluster competition, through which we secured $4.2 million to build the Canadian Refugee Research Network, led by Professor Susan McGrath, and the Canadian Homelessness Research Network, led by Professor Stephen Gaetz,” said Shapson. “The awards reinforce our leadership position in social innovation.”
“Our government is committed to fostering world-class Canadian research and increasing the supply of highly qualified and globally connected graduates that businesses need to succeed in today’s economy,” said the Honourable James Moore, Secretary of State. “We can have all the robust technologies in the world, but we need the social sciences and humanities to know how to harness them and interpret them from a human perspective, so that they translate into tangible, everyday benefits for society.”
A complete list of SSHRC-funded projects is available on SSHRC's website.
SSHRC is an independent federal government agency that funds university-based research and graduate training through national peer-review competitions. SSHRC also partners with public- and private-sector organizations to focus research and aid the development of better policies and practices in key areas of Canada’s social, cultural and economic life.
York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 190,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 11 faculties and 26 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.
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For more information, contact:
Elizabeth Monier-Williams, Research Communications, York University, 416 736 2100 x21069/ eamw@yorku.ca
