Thompson Rivers University’s Dr. John Hull, an associate professor in the Tourism Management Department and co-director of TRU’s Alliance for Mountain Environments Research Group, is part of a national team of researchers working to develop a new Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) proposal that addresses Canada’s mountain regions.

The NCE program is an innovative partnership model that has received international acclaim. Since its inception, the NCE program has invested approximately $2 billion in research, commercialization and knowledge translation.

Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer, University of Alberta’s Dean of Science, invited Hull to participate in the two-day workshop.

If successful, the NCE will be funded for seven years with an opportunity for renewal. Multi-year funding will support research and training in mountain regions.

The workshop included more than 45 representatives from universities, government agencies and First Nations groups, as part of five proposed Initiating Groups from the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta and Eastern Canada.

At the workshop, Hull confirmed TRU’s commitment to participating in this new NCE, and discussed how the proposal will promote the interdisciplinary capacity of TRU’s Alliance for Mountain Environments. He also detailed the contributions made by TRU faculty to mountain studies through the past year, which included attendance at international mountain research conferences that led to research partnerships.

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“The workshop provided a motivating force to advance the Alliance for Mountain Environments Research Group as part of a national mountain network, and it also validated the efforts we have made to organize an interdisciplinary research group focused on mountain environments,” said Hull.

More information:

John Hull
jhull@tru.ca
Tel: 250-852-7638