March 10, 2003 For Immediate Release

The University of Northern British Columbia will be hosting an event on campus this Friday, March 12, to mark the achievements of the University’s research community and what research contributes to the quality of life in the region.

The research showcase will begin at 11:30am in the Bentley Centre. David Strangway, President of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, will announce new federal funding for research infrastructure at UNBC. Also planned is the official opening of the new Social Science multimedia research lab, which was created with federal and provincial funding.

Much of UNBC’s research is particularly focused on northern issues. The University has research forests at Aleza Lake (in partnership with UBC) and north of Fort St James (in partnership with the Tl’azt’en Nation); an integrated resource management program in northeastern BC’s Muskwa-Kechika area; landscape ecology research at the Quesnel River Research Centre; a powerful high-performance computing facility; and forest research at the I.K. Barber Enhanced Forestry Lab. In addition, the University has research institutes dedicated to northern community development, northern land use, adolescents and children with special needs, social indicators, and rural health. Major research programs now underway focus on offshore oil and gas, the integration of First Nations into resource management, and assessing pain in health care settings.

“Our research activity is becoming a major vehicle for raising UNBC’s profile across Canada and around the world - while having outcomes that make a difference to people right here, in our own communities” says Max Blouw, Vice-President Research at UNBC. “The primary goal of research is to advance knowledge and understanding, and it also has a significant local economic impact.”

National surveys have shown that UNBC’s research activity is on par – and even surpasses – many larger and more established universities on a per capita basis.