The CIRS building houses an interdisciplinary collection of academic research units, operational units, partner organizations and food services.
Below is the current list of inhabitants groups:
Centre for Community Engaged Learning
The Centre for Community Engaged Learning collaborates with students, staff, faculty and community partners to provide students with opportunities to apply their academic knowledge to real-world issues through community-based experiential learning placements.
Director: Susan Grossman
Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning
The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning is an interdisciplinary research group, operating jointly in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the Department of Forest Resources Management. CALP develops accessible sustainable solutions focused on climate action and education that bridge research and practice by applying data-modeling, visualizations, innovative environmental design and participatory processes to community and landscape planning.
Director: Dr. Stephen Sheppard
ElementsLAB
ElementsLAB is an urban form and environment research group in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA). The Lab works primarily through the development of elementsdb, a case-based database of urban land use ‘elements’ (e.g. buildings, streets and open spaces), and interactive 2- and 3D modelling and visualizations.
Directors: Ron Kellet and Cynthia Girling
Indigenous Research Support Initiative
A new initiative under the office of the VP Research & Innovation, the Indigenous Research Support Initiative (IRSI) was created to enable collaborative research with Indigenous communities, university researchers and other partners and to transform the institutional culture at UBC to help train researchers on how to appropriately engage in collaborative research with Indigenous communities.
Associate Director: Lerato Chondoma
Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS)
The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions is a research and knowledge sharing network that brings together researchers, policymakers and the business community to study the impacts of and develop adaptations and mitigation approaches to climate change. PICS is led by the University of Victoria (UVic) in collaboration with the University of British Columbia (UBC), Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC).
Executive Director: Ian Mauro (Victoria, BC)
UBC Campus Coordinator: Sara Muir-Owen
Psychology Lab
The Psychology Lab is run by the department of psychology and specifically focuses on research into the human behavioural aspects of sustainability. It is home to the new Canada Research Chair on Cognitive Science and Behavioral Sustainability.
Department Head: Dr. Alan Kingston
Behavioural Sustainability Research Chair: Dr. Jiaying Zhao
Student Diversity Initiative
Part of the Office of Equity & Inclusion, the Student Diversity Initiative, works to address the complexities of the diversity at all levels of campus and to embed UBC’s core values of equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout the operations, systems, culture and organizational structures that directly impact the campus experience for diverse students.
UBC Community Development
Part of the Campus and Community Planning department, this unit reflects the strategic priority placed by the University on making its campuses more vibrant by leveraging its public realm, infrastructure, cultural and athletic assets and developing strong linkages and programs. The unit includes Campus animation, UNA liaison and social programming, transit management and the SEEDs program and works closely with the UNA, the VP Students portfolio, and with the AMS.
Director: Carole Jolly
UBC Energy and Water Services
With a mandate of fiscal efficiency, operational excellence, environmental sustainability, and innovative demonstrations, UBC’s Energy and Water Services works to reduce UBC’s consumption of energy and water, and eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 through mindful stewardship of our campus energy and water resources that maintains environmental comfort, ensures system reliability, minimizes life cycle cost, reduces GHG emissions, and seeks out innovative solutions that inspire.
Managing Director, Energy and Water: Siu Tse
UBC Institutional Programs Office (IPO)
The Institutional Programs Office provides administrative and strategic support to researchers pursuing and operating under major federal, provincial and regional infrastructure awards. IPO services include application review, workshops, financial reporting and audit support, and strategic support to select groups within the VP Research and International portfolio.
Director, Institutional Programs: Sharon Wu
UBC Sustainability and Engineering
Sustainability and Engineering is a unit of Campus and Community Planning, responsible for resource management and infrastructure management plans, operational sustainability planning and reporting, creating incentives for sustainable behaviours among staff, faculty and students, green building programs and providing engineering services for the land use planning and permitting processes.
Director: John Madden
UBC Sustainability Hub
UBC has committed to the integration of our operation and academic efforts in sustainability and the Sustainability Hub (formerly known as the UBC Sustainability Initiative), established in 2010, is our way of advancing this broad goal.
The Sustainability Hub undertakes key cross-cutting functions such as connector, curator and facilitator of a wide breadth of sustainability programs and activities across campus.
In partnership with many other groups, we help integrate and enhance sustainability themes into teaching, learning, and student engagement activities, support interdisciplinary urban research, advance regional and international engagement with sustainability partners, manage UBC’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability, and host the UBC office of the Pacific Institute of Climate Solutions.
Our name today reflects a stronger emphasis on engagement, and our goal to catalyze change for a just and sustainable world. Our five-year strategic plan outlines how we will activate our mission, “Inspiring people to act upon the planet’s most urgent challenges through UBC’s academic and operational sustainability leadership”.
Senior Director: Linda Nowlan
Academic Director: Tara Ivanochko
Office of Wellbeing Strategy
The UBC Office of Wellbeing Strategy supports a university-wide initiative to engage with the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses to build happier and healthier communities. The Office encompasses students, staff, faculty, senior administration, and neighbours working together to ask the question: how can we promote the wellbeing, health and sustainability of our people and environments?
Director Vancouver Campus: Matt Dolf
Director Okanagan Campus: Claire Budgen
Food Hub Market
The Food Hub Market started as a UBC pilot initiative that ran from February – April 2022 on the main floor of CIRS (2260 West Mall, UBC Vancouver campus), aiming to provide at-cost groceries for the UBC Vancouver campus in a welcoming community space. Since that time, the market has re-opened using a student-led governance model with staff support. This student-led not-for-profit community space will continue promoting social connection, cultural diversity, and access to affordable food basics at UBC Vancouver.