The BiG Lab

The “BiG Lab” at UVic is a research lab on borders, and the legacy of the Borders in Globalization Partnership Grant, that will continue activities following the completion of the original grant (February 2020). The BiG Lab is launching a new journal and book series in 2019 on borders in globalization, The BiG_Review and BiG_Books. The BiG lab will also continue to develop a database of comparative statistics and indicators from the perspective of a border dyad.  The BiG Lab intends to continue to host summer institutes which train future border scholars and policy makers.

BIG Research Fellowships

BIG is actively seeking applications for undergraduate fellowships, masters level fellowships, and doctoral fellowships at the University of Victoria. Fellows will work as part of the BIG team, be expected to conduct primary research, and prepare a report on one of our thematic areas. Outstanding works will lead to publications. The BIG research team at UVic will provide supervision, with support from our advisory boards, which are comprised of academics, policy-makers, and business people.

For more information on eligibility, value, conditions, and application procedure, please see the current call for applications here. Our call for applications is constantly being updated depending on which of our academic partners at UVic are currently taking students. If you have questions about your eligibility, please contact our Program Manager at bigmanager@uvic.ca.BIG Supported Calls & Announcements

Sixth Annual AEBR Cross-Border School & Annual Conference
September 28th, 2022 – Szeged, Hungary

Application Deadline: June 20th, 2022 @ 12:00pm (CET)

The Association of European Border Regions (AEBR), together with 21st Century Borders Program (Borders in Globalization Project) at the University of Victoria (Canada) and Radboud University Nijmengen (Netherlands), is offering travel grants for scholars, early career academics, and doctoral students to present a paper at the AEBR Cross-Border School and Annual Conference in Szeged, Hungary. Successful applicants will be eligible for travel grants covering transportation to Hungary, accommodations for up to 3 nights, conference fees, and a stipend for meals. A detailed call, including submission requirements and eligibility details, is available here.

Borders in Globalization SSHRC Partnership Program

The Borders in Globalization (BiG) research program at the Centre for Global Studies began in 2013 with seven years of generous funding from a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Grant. Professor Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, a Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, is the Principle Investigator of the program and leads a team of about twenty-five outstanding colleagues from across Canada and around the world. These colleagues and their students have initiated over 130 research projects on a diverse range of topics related to borders in globalization; they have provided research opportunities and training to over 100 undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Brunet-Jailly leveraged the original SSHRC funding ($2.3 million) to secure an additional $750,000 from the European Union.

BiG’s research examines the well-established concept that borders are primarily understood as sovereign territorial boundaries that emerge out of international treaties. We have found that more than ever before, border policies straddle sovereign boundary lines, and networked policies overlap many different jurisdictional scales, including, but not exclusively, the sovereign territories of states. Furthermore, our research has shown that contemporary borders in globalization are processes that in many instances are fundamentally linked to movements and flows around the world, not to territoriality as conventional wisdom dictates.  We have collected evidence documenting how bordering policies and processes increasingly disregard the territorial limits of states, sometimes implementing borders thousands of kilometers away from their international boundary line.

Over the course of the grant, BiG has hosted two international conferences, 10 summer institutes, multiple policy forums and roundtables. These knowledge transfer activities bring together scholars and students with non-academic stakeholders and policy makers to conceptually and pragmatically understand the ways in which technologies, self-determination and regionalization around the world are affecting borders and borderlands.  As the SSHRC program comes to a close, the BiG team is working to finalize publications and launch a signature journal and book series.