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Public Administration

Research & partnerships

With our research, we address important contemporary challenges with diverse partners and beyond disciplinary boundaries. We also offer student opportunities to work on research projects.

Katya Rhodes and Aaron Hoyle

UVic climate policy expert Katya Rhodes and PhD student Aaron Hoyle are researching multiple ways that Canada can hit its climate targets while winning public support.

Research areas

Planetary health; socio-ecological transition; environmental justice; ecological economics

Human rights; decolonization; cross-cultural approaches; access to justice; labour movements; feminism; equity

Leadership; foresight; public sector reform; change and transformation; science innovation and collaboration; social innovation

Public engagement; Indigenous community engagement; community development

Governance studies; comparative public policy; local government and administration; European studies; border studies

Human resource management; organizational behaviour; decision-making; evaluation; dispute resolution

See the faculty profile pages for specific information on our researchers.

Partner with us

We welcome research collaboration with community partners, public servants and organizations. Please contact us if you would like to develop an idea and make it a research opportunity.

Our students are keen to work on topics that matter to our community partners. Their  show the diversity of their research.

We can offer professional development workshops to your organization. Engage us to create custom learning opportunities. We design, organize and host conferences and public events, too. Please contact us to explore collaborations.

Local Governance Hub

Local communities and regions all have unique assets, capabilities and development ambitions. For over 20 years, the Local Governance Hub (formerly the Local Government Institute) has collaborated with local and regional governments, First Nations governments and organizations, community organizations and a wide range of professionals to support their capacity building and development goals.

Research

Together with students from our Master of Public Administration, Master of Community Development and PhD in Public Administration programs, we support research on a wide range of topics at the local and regional levels. These include environmental sustainability and climate action, food security and regulatory governance.

Evaluation

We help governments and organizations shape policies, plan programs and make decisions. We also boost their performance and enhance services.

Training

We bring together professionals and leaders for workshops and short training sessions. These sessions cover topics like strategic planning, regional development and local administration.

Engagement

We connect researchers with professionals and leaders from local and regional governments, as well as First Nations governments and associations.

We welcome a chance to engage with you and to support your organization.

Policy briefs

Our LGH Policy Briefs Series shares research and practice on local governance.

For inquiries about how to contribute, please email Dr. Tamara Krawchenko, series editor.

Contact

Dr. Tamara Krawchenko, Local Governance Hub chair

Zero-Emissions Sustainability Team (ZEST)

The  is a research group led by Dr. Katya Rhodes.

The team includes faculty, research associates, post-doctoral researchers and graduate students. They collaborate with external researchers, policy makers, advisory groups and consultants.

ZEST is a home base for students pursuing their master's and PhD degrees in public administration. ZEST analyzes policies, technologies and behaviours. These factors help make the shift to a low-carbon economy quick, affordable and acceptable. Their research approach is two-fold:

  1. They develop and use energy-economy models to assess the impacts of climate-energy policy on emissions and the economy.
  2. They collect primary survey and interview data to analyze public and stakeholder opinion about climate-energy policies and low-carbon technologies.

ZEST makes research outputs easy to understand. They translate technical findings into plain language using policy briefs, op-eds and media interviews. Their goal is to provide rigorous and timely information about climate solutions to change-makers.

Borders in Globalization

The  research program and the Jean Monnet Initiative Comparing and Contrasting EU Border and Migration are led by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly. They operate out of the .

BIG Lab

Enhance your educational development by joining the , an international research network connecting research to policy.

Research encompasses a wide range of topics including environment, migration and immigration, indigenous internationalism, security, governance and management, and trade and customs. Our goal is to build excellence in the knowledge of border and advance border management in Canada and worldwide.

This is an opportunity to engage in policy work and learn from international scholars, world industry experts and international organizational leaders on a wide range of projects. There is specific funding available for graduate students interested in pursuing research on border and/or migration policy. Interested applicants should contact borders@uvic.ca and indicate interest in their letter of intent.

Being part of the BIG team means being part of community. I have been able to work with a number of students and scholars from a range of disciplines who offer me different yet invaluable perspectives that support my research interests.
PhD candidate

Coastal Climate Solutions Leaders

The program is a forward-thinking, interdisciplinary initiative led by climate change experts across UVic, including School of Public Administration faculty Tamara Krawchenko and Katya Rhodes. This training provides the next generation of leaders with the knowledge, experience and skills to rise to the challenge of climate change.

Graduate students can apply to complete CCSL as part of their grad program, preparing them to lead critical climate action initiatives that transcend disciplinary boundaries. The program is designed to be integrated with the student’s research thesis completed in their home department.

students sitting at the beach

Research chairs

Three research chairs are located in our school.

Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health

Heather Castleden holds the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health. The objectives of this position are:

  1. Develop transformative and convergent approaches to governance that will address current and future environmental crises.
  2. Implement community-based participatory food, water, energy, and climate research to decolonize current structures of capitalism, extractivism, colonialism, racism and globalization.
  3. Create decolonized spaces for connecting Indigenous perspectives and surfacing emergent Indigenous systems solutions with a view to new decision-making systems, structures and fora.
  4. Train early career researchers in the art and science of seeking the kinds of questions needed to unsettle, decolonize and Indigenize the range of policy choices at multiple scales of governance.

Jean-Monnet Chair in European Union Policy and Governance

Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly holds the Jean-Monnet Chair in European Union Policy and Governance.

The goals of the chair are to:

  1. Internationalize and Europeanize courses in the graduate program of the School of Public Administration.
  2. Showcase the successes of the European Union in comparative perspective with Canada, in areas such as policy (European semester; governance: subsidiarity and multilevel) and border policy and governance (Schengen and Dublin).
  3. Use EU governance and policy making about borders, customs, migration, and human and state security as exemplary comparative cases to contrast and compare with Canada’s.

The chair offers a new course in borders and customs and one in migration and human to military security. It also offers a course in border management. Each course is comparative and policy relevant, primarily focusing on European and North American policy and experiences.

The chair also offers courses in governance and policy, each focusing on both Canada and the European experience. Students in those courses work on policy case studies that are discussed with, for instance, the Canadian Border Services Agency and other organizations such as the Association of European Border Regions. Both summer schools have guest speakers of doctoral and post-doctoral fellows, as well as professionals and experts.

David and Dorothy Lam Chair in Law and Public Policy

Robert Lapper, QC holds the David and Dorothy Lam Chair in Law and Public Policy.

The chair aims to promote research and education. It focuses on how legal and justice issues shape public policy and public administration. It also looks at how social justice and policy issues shape law and justice policy over time.

Some current themes that inform the research, writing and teaching of the Lam chair include:

  • access to justice
  • justice sector reform
  • design thinking approaches to justice and public administration
  • professional regulation and regulatory reform
  • climate justice