Research at SEDRD
Research conducted within the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development reflects the diversity of our programs and the diversity of our faculty and students. Research spans the Canadian and International context and makes important contributions to society and our respective professions focused on Landscape Architecture, Rural Planning and Development, Capacity Development and Extension and Rural Studies. It is often focused at the community level - rural and urban, and tends to be very practical in its application. For more detail please monitor our News Stories or visit individual faculty pages.
Recent SEDRD Research News:
- Scott Brown, Ph.D. Rural Studies student has had his paper accepted for XXVI European Society for Rural Sociology Congress: "Places of Possibility? Rural Societies in a Neoliberal World" as part of the working group “Social Capital, Learning Processes and Social Innovation in Rural Areas” which is 1 of 25 working groups around which the conference is organized.
- Justine Dol, a graduate of the Capacity Development and Extension program and Dr. Helen Hambly Odame co-published a paper in the Journal of Cooperative Organization and Management that employs a feminist research approach to examine whether or not handicraft-based co-ops actually empower rural women and achieve more strategic capacity development among their members. The paper, entitled Stitching Towards Empowerment: A Case Study of Tabiro Ladies Club, Uganda, is based on Justine's MSc thesis. See: http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S2213297X13000219
- Under the direction of Dr. Wayne Caldwell, researchers in the Rural Planning and Development and Rural Studies PhD programs at the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development are participating in a nationwide study exploring agricultural land use planning. The study involves researchers from seven universities across Canada and aims at understanding how the changing role and value of agriculture affects agricultural land use planning at national, provincial and local jurisdictions. Through case studies focused on the Niagara Region and Huron County, the researchers will be analyzing policies related to global competitiveness, farmland preservation and food sovereignty in order to determine the strengths of these three policy regimes locally and their compatibility at a national level.
- Dr. Nonita T Yap received a grant from SSHRC's Partnership Development (2012-2015) for "Innovations for sustainability among micro, small and medium enterprises in India". The goal is to clarify the conditions that might help bring about wider and faster adoption and adaptation of profitability-enhancing, environmentally-cleaner and worker-friendly innovations by micro and small enterprises.
- Dr. Karen Landman and Rural Studies PhD student Christy Hempel have received funding for 2013-2016 through the OMAF New Directions research program. The project, entitled "Effective deliberative planning for alternative energy infrastructure in rural Ontario communities", aims to develop innovative, collaborative methods for rural infrastructure planning.
- On Sept. 3, 2013 Sweden's Ministry of Higher Education announced the award of a Strategic Grant for Internationalization to a consortium of four universities (Malmo University in Sweden, University of Guelph in Canada, Flinders University in Australia and Stellenbosch University in South Africa). This project engages the four partner institutions in graduate-level 'convergence pedagogy' involving online learning and research in the field of Communication for Development.