About

Supported initially by an SSHRC Insight Grant and a Vancouver Foundation Grant, and building on the legacy of a recent three-year Mitacs Grant and two SSHRC Community-University Research Alliance grants, the Research Group brings together an interdisciplinary community of interest and research practice.

The Research Group is an association of university scholars and community partners who share research interests and who engage in collaborative or closely related research and scholarly/creative activities. The primary purpose is to promote and facilitate communication and collaboration among its members. The research group functions as a collaborative, supporting individual-funded projects and providing peer support for new and emerging work. Each project currently ongoing involves clusters of group members. The group members may individually or jointly apply for and receive grants that support salaries and projects, including student training, knowledge mobilization, and travel.

Our Aims 

Working closely with community partners and the principles of cultural mapping research, the Research Group aims to develop independent, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research projects. Specifically, the Group aims to:

• build effective partnerships that encourage public engagement through cultural mapping;
• facilitate research collaboration involving community members, academics, and students as co-researchers;
• study and foster the community-university mentoring of student researchers, creating and refining meaningful high-impact learning opportunities;
• feed into the development of TRU’s honours programming and Honours College;
• build mechanisms and capacity for cultural mapping research engagement;
• create opportunities for knowledge exchange and publication;
• develop approaches and new technologies, including new methods of critical and creative inquiry, that help make research both visible and accessible;
• develop research tools for mapping community and cultural engagement in smaller communities; and,
• engage in areas of community and cultural advocacy, policy development, and networking for capacity enhancement.

Our History

The importance of cultural mapping at TRU dates back to 2001, with the establishment of the Mapping the Cultural Future of Small Cities national research program funded by SSHRC and led by the PI. That “community-university research alliance” (or CURA) helped establish ongoing partnerships with other universities, the City of Kamloops, and organizations within the non-profit sector.