By McGill Reporter Staff
Two McGill researchers are leading projects that recently received Partnership Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), worth nearly $9 million in combined funding.
The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology), made the SSHRC Partnership Grant funding announcement on May 31 at the launch of the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which took place at the University of Victoria.
SSHRC Partnership Grants fund collaborations between researchers and members of the private, public and not-for-profit sectors on issues of importance to advance our understanding of people and society. This year, an investment of $167 million by the Government of Canada will support social sciences and humanities researchers at postsecondary institutions across Canada.
Prof. Renée Sieber, from the Department of Geography and the McGill School of Environment, heads the team behind How the Geospatial Web 2.0 is Reshaping Government-Citizen Interactions. The project seeks to untangle the much-hyped Geoweb, the new form of mapmaking created by “mashing” together the efforts of technology giants like Google and Apple, governments, and ordinary citizens. The project will investigate how geographic data contributed by citizens, made available by government and mapped with Geoweb tools, reshapes local government-citizen interactions.
Over six years, the project will receive a total of $2,552,984 in SSHRC funding and over $3 million more in contributions from its 28 partners, which include some of Canada’s largest cities, major universities, and the United States Geological Survey.
Prof. Paul Yachnin, Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies in the Department of English, is the Principal Investigator on the project Forms of Conversion: Religion, Culture, and Cognitive Ecologies in Early Modern Europe and its Worlds. The project will develop an historical understanding of conversion that will enlighten modern debates about corporeal, sexual, psychological and spiritual kinds of transformation and will explore how early modern Europeans changed their confessional, political, and even sexual identities.
Over six years, the project will receive a total of $2,297,800 in SSHRC funding and close to $900,000 more in contributions from its 18 partners, including the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.
Partnership Development Grants
Four other McGill researchers – Roger Azevedo (Professor and Canada Research Chair, Educational and Counselling Psychology), Alain Breuleux (Educational and Counselling Psychology), Jessica Coon (Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics), and Nathan C. Hall (Assistant Professor, Educational and Counselling Psychology) – were awarded SSHRC Partnership Development Grants. These grants provide support over one to three years to teams or partnerships, led by a project director, to develop research and related activities in the social sciences and humanities, including knowledge mobilization and the meaningful involvement of students and new scholars.
To learn more about the funding announcement, click here.