An international project led by York University Professor Linda Peake has been awarded $2.5 million in funding from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to research how rapid urbanization is affecting the lives of women living in poverty and to inform public debate about sustainable and democratic urban change.
The Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan, announced the funding as part of a package of investment by the SSHRC in research projects across Canada. Peake, a professor in York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, will lead a team of international researchers and partners on the six-year project, Urbanization, gender and the global south: a transformative knowledge network.
They will work with non-governmental organizations, universities and policy bodies and conduct research in seven cities: Cairo, Cochabamba, Georgetown (Guyana), Ibadan, Mumbai, Ramallah and Shanghai. In addition to research, the project includes public education, advancing policy and developing practices that will reduce economic and social insecurities as well as other challenges faced by women, who represent a disproportionate percentage of the urban poor.
“The Partnership Grant of $2.5 million, awarded to York’s Professor Linda Peake, in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, will allow her to undertake a very important project on urbanization and gender,” says Robert Haché, York’s vice-president research & innovation. “York University is delighted with the success of our researchers across SSHRC’s programs. I want to congratulate all recipients.”
More than 160 York professors and graduate students received SSHRC grants and scholarships including: 24 Insight Grants for research on topics ranging from private refugee resettlement to Canadian Paralympian athlete development; 13 Insight Development Grants for projects ranging from Ontario teachers’ views on enacting sex education updates to research on student mentoring and coaching; and a large number of graduate scholarships.