CUES 2026: UBC supports 30 community-university partnerships across BC grounded in reciprocity and local priorities

Co-Founders and Co-Directors of JustUs Street Outreach, Joanna Cockerline (left) and Tasha S. (right) – Joanna and Tasha are pictured on location in the streets of downtown Kelowna’s Leon Avenue, in front of the mural “kwu mrimstn – We are Medicine” by Syilx Okanagan artist
Sheldon Pierre Louis.

UBC awards $735,000 to support 30 community–university partnership projects across British Columbia through the Community‑University Engagement Support (CUES) Fund, supporting faculty who are working in close collaboration with community partners on research, teaching, and initiatives that respond to locally identified priorities.

Through the CUES Fund, UBC is helping faculty build and sustain reciprocal partnerships that connect research and teaching with community priorities across the province. The 2026 projects reflect UBC’s Partner for Purpose commitment, expanding opportunities for faculty to engage in meaningful, community‑informed scholarship that addresses the diverse and evolving needs of communities throughout BC.

Delivered in partnership by Community Engagement and the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, the CUES Fund provides direct support to community organizations by removing financial barriers that often limit community participation in research.

“The partnerships supported by CUES are an important component of Strategy 9 (Knowledge Exchange) to support research excellence in UBC’s strategic plan, in tandem with the 2025-2030 strategic direction of Partnering for Purpose. These diverse, community-based projects across British Columbia can lead to effective new ways of tackling social, health and environmental challenges locally and beyond.”

Dr. Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom
Associate Vice-President Research & Innovation

This year, funded CUES projects reflect a broad range of community engagement across BC. Twenty projects work directly with Indigenous communities, supporting locally grounded knowledge systems and advancing UBC’s commitments to truth, reconciliation, and Indigenous rights. Across the cohort, projects also serve rural and remote communities, racialized communities, and older adults, addressing community‑identified priorities in health, community planning, safe drinking water, climate resilience, youth programming, and cultural revitalization.

2026 Quick Facts:

$735,000 awarded to 30 projects
20 projects serving Indigenous communities
11 projects serving rural, remote or northern communities
9 faculties represented across Vancouver and Okanagan campuses
6 projects co-led by students

Join us in celebrating the 2025-26 CUES Fund recipients and explore more about these remarkable community-university collaborations below! 

Peer Mentor Network for Infertility & Loss

The Peer Mentor Network for Infertility and Loss will expand a province-wide peer mentor network to support people experiencing infertility or loss.

A Living Memorial for the 2021 Heat Dome

A Living Memorial for the 2021 Heat Dome will create a senior-led “living memorial” to honour 2021 heat dome losses through community testimonies, neighbourhood memorials, and a public digital archive.

Brain Injury CIRCLES

Brain Injury CIRCLES partners with Indigenous communities to understand brain injury experiences and co-create culturally grounded care models supported by story circles, community resources, and improved service pathways.  

Cedar Walk Science Circles 

Cedar Walk Science Circles will co-design monthly Indigenous youth STEM and land-based learning sessions, supported by a 12-session program, youth internships, and an open “Holding Space” toolkit.

Chlorine Residual in the Semiahmoo First Nation 

Project partners will support community-led planning by conducting drinking water quality analysis, mapping stormwater, and developing long-term planning tools for the Semiahmoo First Nation.  

Healthier Spaces in Supportive Housing

Healthier Spaces in Supportive Housing will design and evaluate a ventilated inhalation and overdose-prevention space to reduce airborne drug-smoke exposure, resulting in air-quality data, design specifications, and sector-wide guidance. 

Sexual Exploitation Prevention Curriculum for Indigenous Educators 

Project partners will co‑create a culturally grounded curriculum for Indigenous teacher candidates to prevent sexual exploitation and sex trafficking along Highway 16, leading to integrated coursework, trained educators, and community workshops.

VR Tool for Culturally Inclusive Dementia Care 

Project partners will design a VR training tool using lived dementia experiences from Chinese and Filipino communities, producing a VR prototype, toolkit, and policy brief.

Community Connection and Care

Community Connection and Care will build intergenerational youth–senior dialogues on climate, health, affordability, and civic participation, resulting in five dialogue sessions, a community action plan, and open planning tools.

Crossing the Bridge: Indigenous Medicine & Emergency Care

Project partners will bring together Indigenous knowledge holders and emergency‑care practitioners to jointly develop care concepts and community‑validated practice frameworks to bridge Indigenous healing and Western emergency care.

Health Literacy for Newcomer Communities

Health Literacy for Newcomer Communities will deliver multilingual workshops and resources to improve newcomer health literacy and navigation of BC’s healthcare system, with translated guides, workshops, and a digital toolkit.

Francophone Arts & Education Collaboration

Francophone Arts & Education Collaboration will connect Francophone artists with teacher-education students to create a Theatre for Young Audiences production accompanied by educator resources and a province-wide tour.

Indigenous Community Planning with Musqueam

Project partners will develop Musqueam-led land-based learning opportunities for students taking the course “Indigenous Community Planning” and will build pathways for Musqueam learners into planning.

Indigenous Food Ways: Community Led Youth Learning  

Indigenous Food Ways will design and deliver land-based harvesting and kitchen teachings that emphasize Indigenous food knowledge for Indigenous high‑school youth participating in paid summer research internships in Vancouver and Kelowna.

Indigenous Perspectives on Disability & Belonging will train Indigenous facilitators and families to create digital stories on disability and belonging using culturally grounded methods, resulting in facilitator training and creating a story archive grounded in Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession principles.

  • Additional Partners: Mike Lang, PhD, Common Language Digital Storytelling (CLDST) – Krystle Schofield, CLDST

Ktunaxa knowledge keepers and linguists will collaborate to create a pilot chapter of a Ktunaxa grammar, using Elder‑guided documentation that blends linguistic field methods with Ktunaxa ways of knowing and pedagogy.

Lingít Wellness & Capacity Planning    

Lingít Wellness & Capacity Planning integrates wellness and capacity-building into Lingít language revitalization systems to sustain teachers and learners, resulting in wellness policies, capacity-building tools, and a train-the-trainer model.

Many Hearts, Many Voices  

Many Hearts, Many Voices will partner nursing students with street-outreach teams to support people who are unhoused or involved in sex work in Kelowna, BC.  

PROJECT ROSE

PROJECT ROSE will design responses to chronic absenteeism among substance-affected families using participatory and arts-based methods, generating pilot data, recommendations, and a funding-ready plan.  

Reimagining Community Journalism 101

Project partners will strengthen Megaphone’s Community Journalism 101 by co-developing a sustainable curriculum with DTES peer journalists and UBC partners, improving media literacy and newsroom leadership.

kʷu knxtwixʷ—kinSHIFT Schools

kʷu knxtwixʷ—kinSHIFT Schools brings together IndigenEYEZ, the UBCO School of Education, and Central Okanagan Public Schools to co-deliver Indigenous-led professional development that supports educators in decolonizing and indigenizing school environments across Syilx Okanagan territory.  

  • Additional Project Partners: Central Okanagan Public School District 23 – Dr. Natalie Cohen, UBC Okanagan

Reimagining and Sustaining the Racing Readers Program

Project partners will revitalize Racing Readers with multilingual, culturally responsive literacy supports and AI-assisted tools, strengthening literacy, volunteer capacity, and scalable, inclusive models.

Sasiwala: Centering Kwiakah Knowledge Systems

These project partners will create a Sasiwala Ma’ł gathering and community food forest to advance Kwiakah-led regenerative forestry to strengthen land-based knowledge, food sovereignty, and restoration practices.

Sharing Knowledge on Immunization for Newcomer Communities

This project will deliver trauma‑informed vaccine and skin‑health literacy workshops to increase vaccine confidence, train community ambassadors, and create multilingual education tools.

Swimming Together: Youth-Led Aquatic Literacy

Youth with disabilities will co‑design inclusive aquatic‑literacy programming through participatory action research, resulting in a youth‑led program model, municipal implementation tools, and an open‑access Aquatic Literacy Playbook. 

Taking the Right Approach: Culturally Responsive Peer Navigation Services

Project partners will create culturally responsive peer-navigation training for African im/migrants living with HIV, developing a community-driven toolkit, strengthening navigator capacity, and improving culturally safe HIV-care pathways.

The 5 W’s of the Great Basin Spadefoot in Simpcwúl̓ecw 

This project will confirm the presence of Great Basin Spadefoot and will co-develop youth-focused ecological materials, producing species-at-risk data, stewardship tools, and community education resources.

The BRIDGE Centre for Immigrant and Racialized Health Research

Project partners will establish the foundation for a community-led research centre addressing immigrant health inequities, with a governance model, community-driven priorities, and staff capacity in facilitation and data literacy. 

The Memory Collective: Engaging Lives, Enriching Community

The Memory Collective will create dementia‑inclusive programming using the Building Capacity Action Guide to strengthen program sustainability, train volunteers and students, and improve social connection.

Protecting Urban Forests for Community Wellbeing

Project partners will map and analyze urban forest canopy in the District of Saanich to support community‑ and Indigenous‑led protection of threatened Garry oak ecosystems through accessible research and engagement tools.

 

Want to learn more about any of the projects? 

Contact our Fund Manager Elia Robles at cues.fund@ubc.ca. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CUES FUND