Interested in getting applied campus based sustainability research projects to advance your department’s goals and UBC’s ambitious sustainability and wellbeing commitments? 

Most staff and community participate in the SEEDS Sustainability Program through a student-led applied research project. You can check out the SEEDS Sustainability Library for types of research that we have collaborated with staff and community  to date. 

All SEEDS research projects cover a range of critical societal issues and advance our SEEDS Big 5 Research Priorities, including: 1) Accelerate Climate Action, 2) Maintain & Enhance Urban Biodiversity, 3) Enable the Great Food Transformation, 4) Create Circular & Regenerative Economies,  and 5) Foster Wellbeing,  Inclusive, Resilient & Place-based Communities.

Our SEEDS team works closely with you to scope research proposals that can advance departments plans, policies and practices, and achieve the UBC’s ambitious sustainability and wellbeing commitments. 

We work with UBC faculty and students to integrate research into an undergraduate or graduate course, independent study, an undergraduate or graduate thesis, or professional projects. We provide you with a range of support including:

Project Management:

  • We assign a project manager to each research project who provides project management support for the duration of the project from project scoping, initiation, monitoring and control, close to follow up.
     
  • Key responsibilities include supporting the development of a well-scoped project research project, integrating the research into a UBC course or independent study, convening project team (other co-clients, students, faculty), supporting the creation of a project team communications schedule to  ensure the project stays on track. This typically involves the development of milestone schedule with the students and project clients, often a bi-weekly meeting where the students are able to meet with the clients, pitch and refine their research approach and ideas, receive mentorship and elicit feedback on ideas and draft deliverables prior to final submission.  

Partnership Development

  • SEEDS draws on campus networks to find suitable faculty and student partners for each research project. Every research project has at least one student, faculty member, and a primary client, and often secondary clients as well. SEEDS has long lasting relationships with most client groups and each research project builds on previous research to amplify knowledge and action towards UBC’s and societial’s critical sustainability challenges with the staff and community partners in which it affects. 

Curriculum integration with UBC Sustainability and Wellbeing Commitments: 

  • Each project is carefully scoped in a “Research Project Charter” to align with UBC’s operational sustainability or wellbeing commitments, and your course learning objectives.

Deliverables: 

-Completed student projects always include a final research report, executive summary, and a presentation. Student projects may also include prototypes, a demonstration, conceptual designs, full build, video, application, or installation. 

-The final research report is published in the SEEDS Sustainability Research Library, the UBC cIRcle Digital Repository, and shared with our staff or community partner.

Your commitment:

By participating in a SEEDS research project you commit to co-identify research opportunities, serve as project “client”, act on innovative solutions, including: 

  1. Co-develop a Research Project Charter with the SEEDS team.
     
  2. Meet the team and co-define the scope. You support the team to refine the research opportunity through initial project team meetings. There you will discuss expectations, set agreed-upon project milestones, ongoing communication process and any resources needed.
     
  3. Stay involved. You keep in touch via ongoing communication schedule with the project team (e.g. meetings, email, scheduled in-class sessions) to ensure research project deliverables align with your needs.Collaboratively review  any subsequent research proposal/concepts developed with the student(s). Provide feedback on project proposal, any submitted progress reports, other materials, and draft report. Attend final research project presentation.
     
  4. Time Commitment:  Commit to attending regularly scheduled meetings with the project team and periodic review of documents as needed. Meeting and review schedules are determined at the project initiation meeting collectively with the project team. Typically time commitment is attending a bi-weekly 1 hour meeting throughout the project term and 2-3 hours per month of review of documents.