Working to benefit society
Community-based research
By building research partnerships that engage communities and address their priorities, UVic is helping communities thrive and establishing itself as a national leader in community-based research.
Innovative solutions meet very special needs
Enabling people with acute disabilities to communicate and exercise control over their environment is one of the research themes of CanAssist, UVic’s unique community-based program dedicated to improving the lives of those with special needs.
CanAssist unites faculty, student and staff resources on campus with those in the community. They've developed over 140 technology solutions and helped hundreds of clients across BC and around the world. Learn more about CanAssist and our areas of research focus.
Read more about community-based research
You may think it’s the end of the line when you toss a can into your recycling bin, but it’s really just the beginning.
Social geographer Dr. Jutta Gutberlet is finding ways to make life better for informal recyclers, or “binners”—people who make their living collecting recyclable materials.
Gutberlet works with binners and community organizations in Victoria, Vancouver and São Paulo, Brazil, to build community-based, sustainable recycling programs. “By empowering recyclers, we hope to increase incomes, generate jobs and improve the environment,” she says.
Read how a UVic-community partnership led to shelter for homeless binners.
For many poor communities around the world, economic development based on external ideas of “modernization” has not worked.
Business professor Dr. Ana Maria Peredo investigates grassroots alternatives for development based on community organizations and local strengths.
“Within communities lies a social energy capable of rebuilding and creating alternatives to poverty,” says Peredo, an international leader in the field of community-based entrepreneurship.
She's director of UVic’s Centre for Co-operative and Community-Based Economy, which promotes research on the worldwide network of co-operative and community-based enterprise.
Seniors who are taking more than six prescription medications have an 80 per cent chance of having a serious or fatal adverse drug reaction (ADR). A study led by medical anthropologist Dr. Peter Stephenson revealed that most seniors don’t know much about ADRs or how to avoid them.
Seniors and their health care providers need more useful information, says Stephenson, who's designing a comprehensive ADR public awareness program. “Preventing ADRs isn’t just good for seniors’ health; it will also save millions of dollars in health care costs.”
Read how taking too many medications may be putting your health at risk.