Executive Summary
Now in its eighth year, the Community-University Engagement Support (CUES) Fund is UBC’s largest internal funding program designed to support UBC faculty, staff and students collaborate with external community partners.
Launched in 2018, CUES has evolved into a multi-year, multi-million-dollar initiative supported by UBC’s Academic Excellence Fund. It has invested $3.9 million in BC communities and contributed substantially to achieving strategic goals set out in UBC’s Strategic Plan, Indigenous Strategic Plan, and Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism (StEAR) Framework.
- 172 community-university partnerships have been funded across BC
- 18 faculties and portfolios supported at UBC Vancouver and Okanagan
- 75% of funds support Indigenous led (55) and equity-deserving (74) projects
Our recent mid-term impact evaluation showed that CUES has an overwhelming positive impact on community engagement, a catalytic role in enhancing the relevance and impact of academic research and teaching practices, and a healthy return-on-investment of the Academic Excellence Fund.
Across all dimensions of community engagement CUES is consistently rated as having a “very high” or “extreme” benefit:
- 92% of participants said CUES is a highly accessible funding program
- 90% reported that CUES valued community expertise
- 90% indicated CUES has played has enabled more equitable and effective collaboration
- 89% reported gaining valuable insights, tools, and information from their projects
- 92% indicated reciprocity in their partnership
- 89% reported that CUES contributed to project sustainability
In addition, faculty and graduate students reported the following academic outcomes from CUES:
- 98% reported improved capacity to engage
- 93% said CUES helped incorporate community-held knowledge into scholarship
- 76% reported new or deepened research partnerships
- 74% saw improved research impact and implementation in communities
- 67% indicated more student engagement in their initiatives
- 50% reported positive impacts on their teaching (and not all CUES projects are teaching-related)
Lastly, 35% of survey of respondents said CUES helped them to secure additional funding for their initiative. CUES Initiatives have raised a total of $10.5 million dollars, with $3 million in leveraged funds directly attributed to the program to date. An initial scan of the tri-agency awards found an additional $7.5m (SSHRC: $2,287,236 CIHR: $4,993,738; NSERC: $272,950). These outcomes reinforce CUES as a high-impact, high-value investment.
The CUES Fund delivers strong returns and strengthens reciprocal community–university relationships and the impact survey data shows it is worth renewing.
With two funding cycles left, now is the time to determine future investment in the fund.
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Introduction
Analysis and Findings
Introduction
History and Rationale for CUES
Community engagement brings academic and non-academic partners together to co-create knowledge in ways that are mutually beneficial. These partnerships can be transformative and are increasingly valued in university teaching and research.
UBC faculty, staff and students often seek support from community-based partners for their research or learning in some way, while external partners also seek access to academic resources. While some interactions are transactional, many evolve into longer-term, reciprocal relationships. However, community partners are not always compensated for their time, and most academic grants do not cover the indirect costs of engagement.
To help address this, UBC launched the CUES Fund in 2018 to support community engagement activities. It was initially funded at $100,000 and heavily oversubscribed. With Executive sponsorship by the Vice President of Research and Innovation (VPRI), CUES secured three years of funding in 2019 at $523,000/year and, in 2022, five more years at $898,776/year. This mid-term evaluation informs CUES’ future as a permanent UBC program.
What Principles Guide the Fund?
Effective engagement is built on guiding principles that support relationships and benefit both parties. Many universities and community groups have established guiding principles to shape how they take on engagement activities.
CUES was designed based on the following principles of engagement that were co-developed in consultation with UBC and community partners:
- Reciprocity: Exchanging resources and knowledge in a manner that benefits everyone involved.
- Flexibility and Openness to Learn: Listening to and learning from each other, admitting to and addressing mistakes, and adapting approaches to changing contexts, needs, or priorities.
- Transparency: Having clear, honest, and ongoing dialogue about process, ownership, access and motivation.
- Diversity and Inclusion: Listening to and learning from communities that have been disadvantaged, marginalized, and/or excluded. Recognizing, respecting, and valuing diverse knowledge, experiences, and contexts.
Meet the Past Recipients of the CUES Fund
How Does CUES Support UBC’s Institutional Priorities?
The fund supports applicants to both develop new and deepen existing community-university relationships and especially welcomes applications from collaborative projects that advance the following strategic institutional goals:
- Equity, diversity, and inclusion
- Indigenous engagement and reconciliation
- Health innovation and community wellbeing
- Sustainability and climate action
- Teaching, learning, and research excellence
CUES also contributes substantially to achieving strategic goals set out in UBC’s Strategic Plan, Indigenous Strategic Plan, and Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism (StEAR) Framework.
62%
of respondents indicated that their projects contribute to Indigenous reconciliation and decolonization goals outlined in the ISP.
“The CUES project has definitely contributed to goal 3 (moving research forward). Even though the project was not research per se, it has supported “initiatives that are reciprocal, community-led, legitimiz[ing] Indigenous ways of knowing” in the university. It has also contributed to goal 7 (providing tools for success), particularly action 36 “creat[ing] easily accessible structures and mechanisms for Indigenous communities to partner with the university on initiatives that advance their unique goals and interests.”
— Rodrigo dos Santos, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy
“Developing shared understanding of decolonizing perspectives; development of cross-cultural knowledge and skills; increased confidence in discussing and expressing anti-racism and social justice perspectives for community embers, students and UBC staff affiliated with our unit.”
— Kathleen Leahy, UBC Learning Exchange
88%
of respondents reported that their work advances equity and anti-racism objectives outlined in the StEAR Framework.
The Objectives of the Fund
CUES set out to achieve the following objectives:
- Run a highly accessible funding program
- Be responsible stewards of funding
- Celebrate and share the impact of community-university engagement
- Make collaboration easier and more equitable
- Support projects that are mutually beneficial for both partners
- Support project sustainability.
CUES Impact Story
Breathing Life Back Into Their Language
Today, fewer than 47 native speakers of ʔayʔaǰuθəm remain, all of whom are over the age of 60. To help preserve their traditional language, four sister nations—Klahoose, Tla’amin, Homalco, and K’ómoks—are working alongside researchers from UBC and the University of Alberta to develop an ʔayʔaǰuθəm e-dictionary.
In our first podcast ever, we spoke with Koosen Pielle of the Tla’amin Nation (tiskʷət region, Powell River) and Dr. Marianne Huijsmans, U of A Assistant Professor and UBC Linguistics alumna, about their seven-year collaboration on the e-dictionary project.
Analysis and Findings
Highly Accessible Funding Program
CUES was designed to offer flexible, responsive support and remove common funding barriers. Key accessibility features include:
- Funds paid directly to community partners
- Flexible use of funds
- Flexible timelines and reporting
- Support for non-registered charities (i.e. community groups and non-profits) via UBC intermediaries
- Clear guidelines and rubrics
- Anonymized feedback for applicants
- Responsive program staff
92%
of participants said CUES increased their ability to respond to community opportunities or issues.
“The financial support gave us an opportunity to carry out initiatives that met the needs of the community, in accessible ways, that might not have been funded in alternative streams of academic funding. Specific examples [include] being able to offer honorariums and travel subsidies for partner members who would not have had the financial means for travel and participation.
— Barbara Lee, School of Social Work
Responsible Stewards of Funding
CUES uses transparent application and decision-making processes such as:
- Publishing clear eligibility and evaluation criteria.
- Host information sessions and office hours to ensure equitable access and understanding.
- Diversity of review panel members (UBC faculty and staff as well as community representatives) to reduce bias.
- Document and communicate selection decisions, including rationale for declined applications.
- Provide reviewer feedback for applicants to consider for future applications.
- Conduct regular evaluations of the fund’s performance (e.g., applicant, recipient and reviewer feedback and analysis).
- Adjust processes and criteria based on lessons learned.
- In 2022, CUES introduced the option for UBC faculties to serve as financial intermediaries on behalf of community partners without charitable status. Since then, approximately 15% of awarded projects utilize this mechanism.
“I appreciate how CUES is administered. It is, in my opinion, a great melding of institutional needs and partner needs”
— Jason Min, UBC Pharmaceutical Sciences
Meet the Past Recipients of the CUES Fund
Valuing Community Expertise
CUES helps to uplift the voices and expertise of community members, especially those who are often underrepresented, through collaborative, culturally grounded, and action-oriented initiatives., CUES projects highlight how meaningful engagement can lead to lasting changes in systems like health care, create accessible and inclusive cultural programming, and validate the knowledge and leadership of community participants.
“A particularly special highlight was the pride expressed by peer staff and participants when they saw their expertise acknowledged and valued within the cookbook. Many spoke about how meaningful it was to have their voices and contributions recognized in a formal way, further validating their important roles within the community’s food justice work.”
— Maria Gaudin, Downtown East Side Neighbourhood House (DTESNH)
90%
reported that CUES increased acknowledgment and/or celebration of the value of their partnership/project.
“CUES has been so valuable in our research. As we are trying to meaningfully partner with communities, it is helpful to directly support the organizations and given them agency and credibility with funding that they directly manage”
— Julia Schmidt, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy | Faculty of Medicine
Easier and More Equitable Collaboration
CUES provides crucial support to relationship-building processes that are often under-resourced in traditional academic grants. In particular, CUES creates the time, space, and flexibility necessary to foster trust, share leadership, and ensure meaningful participation—especially among partners who have historically been excluded from research agenda-setting.
CUES funding:
- Clarifies roles, expectations, and values within the partnership.
- Strengthens accountability and mutual understanding.
- Supports costs not typically covered by academic grants—such as honoraria for Elders, staff time, child care, transportation, and culturally grounded communications—fostering respect, accessibility, and reciprocity.
90%
indicated CUES has played a significant role in enabling more equitable and effective collaboration between university and community partners.
“CUES gave us financial resources to properly and fairly remunerate community partners for their time and expertise, which enabled us to honour their valuable contributions to our course and the course projects. CUES also helped us access space in the community for public presentations of students’ community engaged projects. This enabled us and our students to reach broader public audiences and to meet the community literally where they are at. The community showcase enabled students to practice presentations to public audiences as a key skill in research and community engagement and also enabled us to celebrate student collaborations with community partners in a public way.”
— John Paul Catungal, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
CUES Impact Story
Lingít: A Love Language for Community
Indigenous language in B.C. is facing a critical state of emergency, largely due to historical Canadian government policies aimed at assimilating Indigenous peoples into English-speaking, non- Indigenous society. However, located in northern B.C., the Children of the Taku, a non-profit society working to protect the land, culture and language of the Taku River Tlingit People, is leading a revival of their language.
To learn more about this project, we spoke with K’èdukà Jack, the executive director of the Children of the Taku Society, and Dr. Schreyer, an associate professor of anthropology at UBC Okanagan, who has been working with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation on a variety of initiatives since 2005.
Support Mutually Beneficial Projects
CUES funding enables projects that are demonstrably reciprocal, where both community and academic partners benefit. Community partners have accessed institutional resources—such as student researchers, communications support, and physical spaces—that would otherwise have been out of reach. Meanwhile, UBC students and researchers have benefited from lived expertise, peer leadership, and grounded, community-informed perspectives that enrich academic inquiry and teaching.
“We were able to offer community-based programming to parents of children with disabilities. The program was offered several times in different modalities. The programs were well attended. We did an evaluation with program attendees and it definitely provided them with new skills and peer support. We would not have been able to offer this programming without CUES funding. Because the funding was held by the community partner they took real leadership in running the program and I was there to support them and follow their lead, which was a nice change from other projects we do together where I hold the funding. It really helped to develop the reciprocal nature of our ongoing collaboration.”
— Jennifer Baumbusch, School of Nursing
89%
indicated CUES has played a significant role in enabling more equitable and effective collaboration between university and community partners.
92%
indicated reciprocity in their partnership.
Support Project Sustainability
CUES projects often lay the foundation for long-term partnerships, strategic planning, and capacity building. CUES funding was reported to leverage additional funding, expand networks, and demonstrate impact to external stakeholders, ultimately making it more likely that the work will endure beyond the initial grant period.
89%
reported that CUES contributed to project sustainability.
“CUES funding helps sustain university-community collaborations in between applications for larger grant competitions.”
— Paul Kershaw, School of Population and Public Health
“CUES helped UTG to build a strong board of directors. Helped to connect to more grants.”
— Mo Korchinski, Unlocking the Gates
CUES Impact Story
Supporting Pets and Their People in the DTES
When the BC government declared the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020, Kelsi Jessamine and Dr. Doris Leung had to act quickly to continue supporting their clients—pet owners experiencing homelessness or who are vulnerably-housed in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES).
The pair, who jointly run Community Veterinary Outreach’s (CVO) Vancouver program, had received a UBC Community-University Engagement Support (CUES) grant to offer a series of free “One Health” veterinary clinics.
Academic Benefit
CUES shifts traditional academic dynamics, fostering more equitable relationships and building UBC’s reputation for engaged scholarship. While CUES is often viewed primarily as a community-focused fund, the evidence demonstrates it is equally valuable in advancing academic priorities, from research training and curriculum development to institutional credibility and external funding success.
CUES-funded projects enhance academic learning, research, and institutional impact through ethical, community-based engagement by:
- Providing students with opportunities to apply classroom theory in real-world contexts.
- Supporting co-learning and reciprocal training between academic and community partners.
- Deepening researcher expertise.
- Promoting culturally responsive teaching.
- Strengthening ethical research practices.
“For UEFS, the project was an opportunity to offer students real-world experience in ethical, community-based research that is grounded in reciprocity and respect. Students were able to apply classroom theory in meaningful ways, learning directly from community members about the lived experience of food insecurity, cultural resilience, and grassroots organizing. This not only enriched their academic understanding but also supported our department’s commitment to collaborative and socially engaged scholarship. The project aligned with our long-standing partnership with DTESNH and helped further develop students’ capacity for responsible research and community engagement in ways that are mutually beneficial.”
— Kerry Greer, Department of Sociology
“[Our project] centered community and Indigenous perspectives to inform programming in our unit; strengthening and deepening relationships in support of academic activity including teaching; sharing and learning cultural protocols etc.”
— Kathleen Leahy, Learning Exchange
Faculty Breakdown
Since its inception, 26 different faculties across both UBC campuses have applied to the CUES Fund (Figure 1). Of these, 18 have received funding (Figure 2), demonstrating broad institutional engagement across disciplines.
While a wide range of departments are increasingly recognizing the value of community-based research and collaboration, some faculties are more engaged than others; the Faculties of Medicine, Arts, and Applied Science consistently lead in both application volume and success, accounting for a combined 55% of all CUES funding since 2018. Their sustained involvement suggests a strong alignment between their academic mandates and CUES’ goals of reciprocal, applied scholarship.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in applications from underrepresented faculties, including Land and Food Systems, Science, Creative and Critical Studies, Health and Social Development, and VP Students. This emerging interest suggests that community engagement capacity is growing across the university.
Faculty Heavy Hitters
To date, 23 faculty members have received more than one CUES grant, indicating both a strong foundation of experienced community-engaged scholars and sustained institutional commitment. Notably, several faculty champions have used CUES funding to support multi-year or evolving collaborations:
- Helen Brown, School of Nursing (4 grants)
- Vicky Bungay, School of Nursing (3 grants)
- Kelsi Timler, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (3 grants)
- Larry Leung, Pharmaceutical Sciences (3 grants)
These repeat recipients often serve as hubs of expertise, mentoring students and colleagues, and helping to embed community engagement within academic units. Their projects frequently leverage CUES as a platform to secure larger grants, generate research outputs, and influence policy or practice in their fields.
At the same time, there is a marked increase in first-time applicants, which speaks to a broadening culture of engagement at UBC. More faculty across disciplines are beginning to see community partnership as central to impactful teaching, research, and knowledge mobilization. To better support this growing interest, there may be an opportunity for peer learning across faculties, where experienced CUES recipients share tools, strategies, and lessons learned with emerging applicants.
CUES Impact Story
Improving Child Development and Well-being for Young Families in Revelstoke, BC
The Revelstoke Child Care Society partnered with the Human Early Learning Partnership at UBC to improve access to services, programs, and positive experiences for families with young children in Revelstoke, BC.
Formed in the early 2000s, this partnership co-led by Tracy Spannier of the RCCS and Dr. Martin Guhn from HELP UBC combined research expertise with community insights, to create meaningful dialogue, collaboration, and collective action.
Return on Investment
CUES delivers a strong return on investment by enabling community-university partnerships to access larger external funding, sustain collaboration between major grants, and extend the impact of UBC’s internal funding far beyond its original allocation.
To date, a total of 10.5 million in additional funding has been leveraged through CUES supported initiatives:
- $3 million was reported in our impact survey (UBC applicants reported $2,642,500; community applicants: $381,945 from various sources including government, foundation, and private sources).
- A scan of tri-agency awards identified $7.5 million in related funding (SSHRC: $2,287,236; CIHR: $4,993,738; NSERC: $272,950)
35%
of respondents secured additional funding for their CUES-funded project.
“An ability to attract other donor support because the funds from CUES came from UBC to community orgs, which is normally NEVER the flow of support. CUES provides reputational impact for UBC far beyond the dollar amounts because the funding counters the impression that UBC researchers only tend to approach community partners with a self-interest in asking NPOs to support a grant application from UBC without any guarantees that any benefit will actually come to the NPO for the “free” work of providing support; or worse yet a UBC researcher has already received funding without any input from the community partner and they are being approached with goals and outputs and budgets already locked into place without any consultation with the community org about what they might have wanted or needed, or whether there are other goals that could have been met with marginal additional amounts but now it is too late.”
— Henry Yu, Asian Canadian and Asian Migration (ACAM) Studies; Department of History
“My connection with Bella Bella has been nourished and sustained by grants from UBC, the Remote Community Based Learning Fund (which no longer exists), CUES and Hampton, all of which paved the way for the successful SSHRC grant. A good example – in my mind – of using small grants to catch bigger ones.”
— Mark Turin, Department of Anthropology
Unexpected Outcomes
CUES conducts annual reviews informed by applicant, recipient, and reviewer feedback, leading to changes that make the fund more accessible. To reduce reporting burdens—especially for community-led and Indigenous projects—CUES replaced written reports with story-based, podcast-style reflections that honor oral traditions and support authentic, culturally grounded sharing. Recipients report greater ease, connection, and authenticity, while the stories now serve as powerful tools for mobilizing knowledge and amplifying partners’ voices.
“I’ve appreciated this process and being able to dynamically tell my story as the final reporting. I appreciated how flexible this funding was, and to be able to just show up here and put my energy into telling a story rather than writing yet another professional document. I felt really inspired hearing the podcast that you created out of UBC funded projects with other indigenous communities, and this supported me to feel a sense of community and that I wasn’t standing alone. I knew others had walked in this path before me and that I could just trust that it was going to be okay even though it is an unusual process. It’s more vulnerable to show up like this so gunalchéesh to you both for being really flexible about the whole process because I’m trying to save my energy everywhere I can.”
— K’èdukà Jack, the Executive Director of the Children of the Taku Society and CUES Fund recipient, talking about her experience on our podcast Lingít: a Love Language for Community.
“CUES [gave] us the opportunity to build out our partnership without any funding barriers. [The] CUES team checked in regularly and were supportive with ideas, resources and most importantly solutions. CUES encouraged a low barrier approach that enabled our Indigenous Elders to continue with the focus of oral tradition.”
— Nicole Bird, Carnegie Community Centre
Meet the CUES Fund Manager
Meet the CEN: Shayla Walker
Shayla manages our two funding programs: the Community University Engagement Support (CUES) Fund and the Partnership Recognition and Exploration (PRE) Fund.
Through these initiatives, Shayla helps bridge the gap between UBC and its community partners, supporting collaborations that range from Indigenous language revitalization to pet clinics connecting owners to health services. In this interview, she shares inspiring examples of community-driven projects, valuable advice for applicants, and their unique approach to fostering flexibility and trust in grant-making.
Conclusion
Actionable Items to Consider Going Forward
- Provide opportunities for networking, or an in-person celebration
- Continue to share project updates and profile recipients via Community Engagement newsletter
- Increased messaging around funding guidelines, reporting options, and funding flow options. This information is all available and accessible within our application guidelines and FAQ section on our websites, but a small number of respondents noted this information was hard to find.
- Provide more information on opportunities for additional/more funding for community-university partnership work.
- Provide support to pre-tenure faculty by writing to Department Heads to highlight the significance of the work they are doing and the time investment it takes on the part of faculty members.
Final Recommendations
We believe there is value in renewing the CUES fund. The impact survey results show that the CUES fund plays an important role in building and sustaining reciprocal community university relationships and that it has a strong return on investment, leveraging more funds than it has granted. To formally validate its impact, we recommend undertaking a formal external review modeled on the evaluation process used for the VPRI Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters. The Faculty of Arts has expressed interest in contributing to this effort, additional resources will be required to support a rigorous, independent assessment that can inform future planning and demonstrate the program’s long-term value.