University of Saskatchewan
IN-2: Innovation 2

The recently created Sustainability Education Research Institute has a number of linked components. These include i) moving forward several of the University of Saskatchewan’s Strategic Priority Research Areas as well as University’s Sustainability Commitment through a collaborative, innovative, and internationally-linked research institute on sustainability education within the College of Education; ii) creating a research program in sustainability education at the University that goes beyond the research program of any one faculty and brings together faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, staff, and regional, national, and international organizational partners in focused work on environment and sustainability in relation to education; iii) providing a research space to house the work of a number of existing and future grants, including a recently awarded 3 million dollar SSHRC Partnership Grant (2012-2018). As such, the goals of the Institute are: • To further research and action on land, place, environment, and sustainability in relation to educational research, policy, and practice; • To further environmental and sustainability education via regional, national, and international partnerships and innovative and collaborative research; • To attract strong collaborators and provide a collaborative and leadership hub for organizational partners, graduate students, and faculty with shared research interests; • To develop the Institute and sustainability education research as a core component of research activities in the College of Education and contribute to building its developing research culture; • To contribute to the University of Saskatchewan’s Signature Areas, including “Energy and Mineral Resources: Technology and Public Policy for a Sustainable Environment” and “Aboriginal Peoples: Engagement and Scholarship,” as well as the University’s Commitment to sustainability through innovations in governance, research, education, operations, and community engagement (Figure 1). • To act as the “Network Management Office” for the Sustainability and Education Policy Network (SEPN), funded by a SSHRC Partnership Grant ($1,964,996 in SSHRC funding, plus over 1 million in matching cash and in-kind funding, 2012-2018), and house the full-time Project Manager for that project as well as to house faculty and staff working on other grants and projects (e.g., The Digital Media Project: Youth Making Place, SSHRC Standard Grant, $112,000, 2011-2014). Sustainability education is a growing and important focus for research, and yet prior to the establishment of the Sustainability Education Research Institute, there was no other centre for research in this area in the prairie region or nationally. In accordance with the University of Saskatchewan’s framework, the Sustainability and Education Research Institute seeks to further sustainability as “the stewardship of the natural environment in a socially and economically responsible manner that meets the needs of both the present and future generations” (U of S Sustainability Commitment Working Group). As the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization suggests “the goal of education is to make people wiser, more knowledgeable, better informed, ethical, responsible, critical and capable of continuing to learn. Education, in short, is humanity’s best hope and most effective means in the quest to achieve sustainable development” (UNESCO, 1997).