Research Activity
Our school is home to active programs of research focused on some of the most challenging health and social issues facing Canadians. Our work transforms individuals and communities and significantly impacts our local, provincial, national and international research partners and the organizations and communities in which they are situated.
In 2018, the combined productivity of the Schools of Social Work at Okanagan and Vancouver campuses was recognized as being the top 3 most frequently cited among Canadian Schools and Faculties of Social Work. All professorial stream faculty in our School, save one, have tri-council funding as Principal Investigators or Co-Investigators through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council or Canadian Institute for Health Research.
Our school is research-intensive within a research-intensive university, and we involve our graduate students in research as students, research assistants on our many funded projects, mentorees, and scholars engaged in directed studies courses, theses, or both. We have numerous PhD students and a growing number of post-doctoral students in our School who work with master’s degree and doctoral students and faculty in five principal areas of research excellence: scholarship in child welfare, disability studies, homelessness research, mental health research, and substance misuse research.
Examples of “recent firsts” in our School’s history:
- Dr. Wells won the School’s first Canadian Foundation for Innovation infrastructure funding to establish the Centre for the Study of Services to Children and Families, the first such centre in Western Canada.
- Dr. Shelly Ben-David – the School’s first Michael Smith Foundation, five-year award to support mental health research
- Dr. Rachel Hole – the School’s first PI’d single, tri-council grant exceeding $1 million in support of disability studies research: and the first research Institute in the School (Canadian Institute for Inclusion & Citizenship).
- Dr. John Graham – received the School’s first Eminence funding to support the work of an interdisciplinary team of homelessness scholars researchers that he is leading; his scholarship has been recognized as among the top 50 most cited for his academic discipline in the English-speaking world.
Faculty Research
Curious about faculty research projects? Visit our faculty directory for profiles.
SUPPORT US AS WE SUPPORT OUR COMMUNITY
There are many different ways to donate to our programs and research projects. If you’d like to donate to the school please click on the link below.