How can we understand human action across individual, collective and institutional scales?
What strategies foster interactions among neighbourhood organizations, non-profits, and government bodies and thereby promote sustainable communities?

Dates: 2013 – 2015 Funded by: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Amount: $41,000 Co-Investigators: Rob VanWynsberghe, Samia Khan This research studies the use of the classroom to encourage and facilitate individuals (in conjunction with communities) to undertake experimental projects geared toward addressing sustainability issues in the community. The purpose of the research is to construct pragmatist-inspired learning environments that encourage social change through experimentation in the classroom by challenging habitual problem solving strategies. A central premise of the proposed work is that our classrooms feature the same habits and institutional routines that contribute to broader social problems. The objectives of this proposed research are: Explicate the facilitative role of education in learning about social change by testing a classroom designed to capitalize on the insights of the pragmatist theory of human action. Develop a testable and replicable model for sustainability education; one that is experimental and based on pragmatism. Mobilize new knowledge regarding sustainability education through partnerships forged among students, community stakeholders, and researchers.

Dates: 2008 – 2013 Funded by: 1) Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) and Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) ($300,000); and 2) VP-Research ($40,000) and VP-Academic, UBC ($300,000) Amount: $640,000 (total) Primary Investigator: Rob VanWynsberghe The Olympic Games Impact (OGI) program was developed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to objectively measure and report on the environmental, economic and social effects of the Olympic Games. The purposes of OGI are to advance the sustainability of the Games, promote positive legacies by Games’ hosts and create a knowledge base for future hosts. Data on 126 prescribed indicators was collected before, during and after the Games. The OGI Pre-Games Report was released in December 2009.

Dates: 2006 – ongoing Funded by: 1) Learning Technologies Grant, Faculty of Education, UBC; and 2) Rex Boughton Award Amount: $10,000 Principal Investigators: Rob VanWynsberghe, Samia Khan Co-Investigator: Vanessa Mirzaee In this project, a website (http://www.foresee-database.com/) was developed to foster cross-case analysis. Cross-case analysis explores how commonalities of processes and structures can exist despite the appearance of differences in events, activities, and phenomenon. An ongoing course in Case Study and Cross-Case Analysis is available through the Faculty of Education (INDS 565). Publications from this project include: Khan, S., & VanWynsberghe, R. (2008). Cultivating the under-mined: Cross-case analysis as knowledge mobilization. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(1), Article 34. Available here. VanWynsberghe, R., & Khan, S. (2007). Redefining case study. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 6(2), 89-94. Available here. Reprinted in G. Thomas (Ed.) (2014). Case study methods in education, Sage Publications, and M. Tight (Ed.) (2014). Case studies. Sage Publications.

Dates: 2008 – 2010 Funded by: Canadian Population Health Initiative, Canadian Institute for Health Information Amount: $180,000 Principal Investigator: Jim Frankish Co-Investigator: Rob VanWynsberghe This study investigated the implementation of the Inner-city Inclusivity Commitment Statement (ICS) for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. The ICS, which may be considered a policy statement, was a set of social, environmental, and economic guarantees set forth at the time of the bid to maximize benefits and minimize negative impacts for Vancouver’s inner-city related to hosting the 2010 Winter Games.

Dates: 2003 – 2009 Funded by: 2003 Research Unit Award, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Amount: $450,000 Principal Investigator: Annalee Yassi Co-Investigators: Rob VanWynsberghe, Reva Adler, Ellen Balka, Philip Bigelow, William Bowie, Gwenneth Chapman, Barbara Crocker, James Frankish, Judith Globerman, Eduardo Jovel, Arminée Kazanjian, Susan Kennedy, Rena Levy-Milne, Chris Lovato, Aleck Ostry, Gary Poole, Danielle Papineau, Laurie Pearce, Mohammad Iraj Poureslami, Irving Rootman, Samuel Sheps, Jerry Spiegel, Elvin Wyly, and Bruno Zumbo Many people suffer from negative health behaviours, reduced health status and inappropriate access to and/or use of health services associated with being part of a vulnerable population. Focused on five settings – community, workplace, clinical-community interface, school and international – this multidisciplinary unit undertook research aimed at developing health promotion strategies to help reduce these disparities. The unit’s emphasis was on the development of better tools, methods and resources for conducting research with vulnerable populations, and improvements in knowledge translation and dissemination of research findings.

Dates: 2002 – 2009 Funded by: 1) Canadian Institutes of Health Research; and 2) Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Amount: $1,800,882 Principal Investigator: Jim Frankish Co-Investigators: Rob VanWynsberghe, Ellen Balka, Allan Best, Nancy Christine Edwards, Penelope Hawe, Jacek Andrzej Kopec, Francis Lau, Gary Douglas Poole, Kim Denise Raine, Pamela Anne Ratner, Irving Rootman, Samuel Barry Sheps, Sally Elizabeth Thorne, Douglas R. Wilson, Andrew V. Wister, and Annalee Yassi The training program was designed to attract mentors and learners with an interest in community-partnership research. The four target learner groups were graduate students from multiple disciplines and programs, transdisciplinary postdoctoral fellows, community program managers, learners, and policy makers. The program had four objectives: to provide research training in an integrated, transdisciplinary community-partnership approach that links research to policy and practice; to develop capacity of community-based practitioners and university researchers to engage in community partnership research that contributes to sustained partnerships; to educate researchers, policy makers, community members to create evidence for best practices; and to develop and disseminate curriculum materials.

Dates: 2006 – 2008 Funded by: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Amount: $80,292 Principal Investigator: Ann Dale Co-Investigators: Rob VanWynsberghe, Kevin S. Hanna The goal of this research was to explore the role of agency in sustainable community development, and to investigate how social network formation and the resulting social capital creates agency within communities.

Dates: 2005 – 2008 Funded by: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Amount: $109,000 Principal Investigator: Rob VanWynsberghe Co-Investigators: Bob Wollard, Jim Frankish, Elvin Wyly, Trevor Hancock, and Meg Holden This study conducted a detailed analysis of the activities, networks, and contributions of one of the prominent groups at the centre of the Vancouver bid – an alliance known as the Impact on Community Coalition (IOCC). The objectives were to: 1) conduct a literature review of the factors influencing participation in community-based coalitions (CBCs), specifically in relation to mega-events such as the Olympic Games; 2) study the short-term outputs and intermediate-term impacts of community-engagement processes on IOCC-related individuals, organizations and partners; 3) study how the IOCC mobilizes limited resources and institutional networks in attempts to understand and monitor large, well-funded, and inherently mobile mega-events; 4) create a model for how mega-events can engender a healthy communities framework; and, 5) identify strategic suggestions on engendering/sustaining healthy communities around mega-events. Publications from this project include: Holden, M., MacKenzie, J., & VanWynsberghe, R. (2008). Vancouver’s promise of the world’s first sustainable Olympic Games. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 26(5), 882-905. Available here. Surborg, B., VanWynsberghe, R., & Wyly, E. (2008). Mapping the Olympic growth machine: Transnational urbanism and the growth machine diaspora. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 12(3), 341-355. Available here. VanWynsberghe, R., Kwan, B., & Van Luijk, N. (2011). Community capacity and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 14(3), 370-385. Available here. VanWynsberghe, R., Surborg, B., & Wyly, E. (2013). When the Games come to town: Neoliberalism, mega-events and social inclusion in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(6), 2074-2093. Available here.