Research & partnerships

Our researchers are exploring subjects ranging from multiculturalism to re-thinking the possibility of politics in a post-modern era. This knowledge and expertise are passed directly on to our students and foster strong links with the university and the wider community.

Faculty research areas

Recent award announcements

Congratulations to Amy Verdun on her recent election (2023) to the Royal Society of Canada
Will Greaves received the 2022 Faculty of Social Sciences, Excellence Award for Early Career Research Scholar
In 2022, Colin Bennett was received the Distinguished Academic Award from Confederation of University Faculty Associations (CUFA).
Michelle Bonner's book, Policing Protest in Argentina and Chile, won the 2016 CPSA Prize in Comparative Politics. The prize was announced at the President's dinner of the CPSA meetings at the June 2016 Congress in Calgary
Oliver Schmidtke won the 2016 Faculty of Social Sciences Research Excellence Award.

Research grant announcements

Marlea Clarke is co-investigator on a SSHRC Insight Grant (2021-26): "Transnational Legal Governance, Modern Slavery and Forced Labour in Supply Chains: Canada in a Global Context"
Rita Dhamoon was awarded a SSHRC Insight Grant (2022-25) "Sikhs and Inclusion Politics"
Amy Verdun was awarded a 5-year (2021-26) SSHRC Insight Award: "European Union and Crisis: Understanding the Birth of the EU Recovery Fund in Comparative Perspective"
Michelle Bonner was awarded a 5-year (2021-26) SSHRC Insight Award: "Disappeared during democracy: how media and activists communicate judicial trials"
Oliver Schmidtke was awarded a EU Jean Monnet Network Grant: "European Memory Politics – Populism, Nationalism and the Challenges to a European Memory Culture" (2019-23) and a SSHRC Insight Grant: "Populism and its Effects on Liberal Democracy: Minority Rights and Freedom of Speech" (2019-24)

Partnerships

Our faculty are engaged in research with researchers at other instutitions in Canada and around the world.

Partnership grants

Claire Cutler works with researchers at UBC on the hidden costs of supply chain governance
Matt James works with researchers at UVic and across Canada on the project, "Landscapes of Injustice"
Oliver Schmidtke and Scott Watson are part of the “BiG Lab”, a research lab on borders in globalization
Feng Xu has a partnership grant with researchers at York University exploring issues around migrant labour. She also works on employment precarity with research partners at Simon Fraser University

The Victoria Colloquium in Political and Legal Theory is a joint faculty-graduate student initiative that brings together scholars from Law, Politics and Philosophy. The colloquium hosts 6 internationally renowned scholars each year at UVic. Our invited speakers include some of the best known political and legal theorists in the world.

Research centres

Centre for Global Studies

Since its formal inception in 1998 the Centre for Global Studies (CFGS) at UVic has had a mandate to conduct collaborative, policy-oriented inquiry into the impacts of globalization on a broad spectrum of inter-related issues encompassing international governance, finance, the environment, security and sustainable development.

Through research and international development activities, the centre promotes collaborative policy solutions to the human, economic and environmental challenges posed by globalization.

Building on the university's existing base of interdisciplinary expertise, the centre provides a vehicle for linking scholarship with the needs of policy-makers for concise and accessible information and analysis in response to the pressing challenges of global change.