The School of Kinesiology’s Centre for Sport and Sustainability (CSS) received a recent boost thanks to the success of a team from the CSS, and a range of collaborators, in the 2020-2021 ‘Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters’ (GCRC) funding competition. The GCRC is a UBC-based initiative jointly created by the Vice-President (Research & Innovation) and the Provost & Vice-President (Academic) “to enable the formation and growth of interdisciplinary research excellence clusters.”
The GCRC-enabled cluster, called the Mobilizing Sport & Sustainability Collective, was assembled to support research and knowledge mobilization activities associated with the CSS. Led by Kinesiology’s Dr. Brian Wilson (cluster lead), Dr. Andrea Bundon, and Dr. Moss Norman, the cluster includes 22 UBC and non-UBC members, from both academic and non-academic communities. The cluster’s mandate is as follows:
Sport-related social and environmental problems sometimes ‘fly under the radar’ because of the unique contexts that sport presents. Sport also has unique potential for addressing these same problems. The Mobilizing Sport & Sustainability Collective, in association with UBC’s Centre for Sport and Sustainability (CSS), aims to 1. Raise awareness about problems within and around sport that are sometimes unacknowledged, and feature existing research that is concerned with these problems, 2. Highlight and explore the unique potential of sport for addressing social and environmental issues, and 3. Foster dialogue concerning the potential of, problems with, and misuses of the notion of ‘sustainability’ in and around sport. In pursuit of the overarching aim of mobilizing knowledge about pressing issues related to sport and sustainability, activities of the Collective are oriented around the development of original, strategic and engaging communication materials for a Sport and Sustainability Research and Education Media Resource. These activities will support the CSS’s vision of being a local, national and global resource on sport and sustainability.
Brian Wilson noted that “support from the GCRC will be invaluable as we continue to work to promote awareness about sport’s relationship with sustainability, highlight ways that sport-related social and environmental issues might be addressed, and explore the power of sport as a facilitator for positive change”. Dr. Robert Boushel, Director of Kinesiology pointed to “the CSS’s alignment with the strategic priorities of UBC’s School of Kinesiology, including research excellence, knowledge exchange, and the promotion of wellbeing.” The Centre for Sport and Sustainability is one of five research centres in UBC’s Faculty of Education. The CSS’s mission is to improve “understandings of the relationships between sport and human and ecological wellbeing, social and economic development, and cultural identity.”