About QES – Advanced Scholars

Thanks to the generous financial support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Centre (SSHRC), the QES program provides support for doctoral researchers, post-doctoral researchers as well as early career researchers from Canada and low-and-middle income countries to develop solutions to complex national and global challenges. The QES-Advanced Scholars projects focus on institutional capacity strengthening of the partner institutions from the Global South, contributing to improved global talent exchange between Canada and other nations.

Note: The projects below are posted in the working language of each initiative.

The following projects are now closed.

QES-AS University projects

Project title: Coming together – Strengthening partnerships between Ghana and Canada to address maternal, newborn, and child health

Summary: The Coming Together Project will be part of a larger partnership between the University of Alberta (UAlberta) Faculty of Nursing (FON) and the University of Ghana (UG) School of Nursing (SON) to develop a community of global nurse scholars and leaders. The QES-AS Program will support future nursing leaders with the knowledge and leadership skills needed to address significant Maternal Newborn Child Health (MNCH) issues in Ghana.

Area of focus: Maternal and child health

Project title: Queen Elizabeth Scholars – Advanced Scholars (international development)

Summary: The project will work in:

  • Maternal and child heath: Building an evidence-informed perinatal mental health service.
  • Foundations for innovation: Building capacity in mathematics and physics.
  • Maternal and child health: Improving maternal and child health by reducing exposure to mercury and arsenic in gold mining areas.
  • Health: Strengthening research skills in cardiac sciences.
  • Climate change/food, environment and health: Researching groundwater stress.

Areas of focus: Climate change; Food, environment and health; Foundations for innovation; Maternal and child health

Project title: Societal Transformation and Climate Change – Training the next generation of scholars in Sub-Sahara Africa (NextGen Climate Change Advanced Scholars)

Summary: The objectives of the NextGen-Climate Change Advanced Scholars project are to provide enhanced training through a multi-disciplinary network of climate change experts that will facilitate future ongoing collaborative research; to offer inter-country mentorship of advanced scholars to share a global perspective on climate change; and to deliver individual professional development for scholars in the areas of communication skills and publishing.

Areas of focus: Climate change

Project title: Agrobiodiversity, Nutrition and Sustainable Marketing of Heritage Crops in Ecuador and Canada

Summary: The project will investigate social, ecological, economic and marketing factors that affect small-scale farming. The goal is to understand how small-scale farming can be supported to provide social, economic, ecological, and health.

Areas of focus: Climate change; Agriculture and food security

Project title: Building Capacity in Urban Food System Governance in LMIC Cities

Summary: The Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) is an international partnership network of city-based universities and research centres linking researchers in Canada and LMIC cities (www.hungrycities.net). A key objective of the HCP network is to foster and strengthen a sustainable global network of institutions and scholars working collaboratively on the relationship between rapid urbanization, growing urban food insecurity and the governance of urban food systems in the Global South.

Areas of focus: Agriculture and food security; Governance and justice; Employment and growth; Food, environment and health

Project title: A network of interdisciplinary, solution-oriented researchers to improve the livelihoods and food and nutrition security of adolescent girls and women farmers in rural Ghana

Summary: This project is focused on strengthening the capacity of researchers who will work with farmers, entrepreneurs, community leaders, and local institutions to develop solutions to the complex, interrelated problems related to agriculture and food security.

Areas of focus: Agriculture and food security

Project title: Développement des “leaders” pour une meilleure nutrition des filles et des femmes, un incontournable pour le mieux-être des populations d’Afrique de l’Ouest et Centrale

Summary: Ce projet vise la mise en commun des expertises de plusieurs partenaires dans la mise en œuvre de stratégies d’intervention qui contribueront à la formation des futurs « leaders » en santé, en nutrition et an agroforesterie en Afrique de l’Ouest et Centrale.

Le but est de contribuer à l’amélioration de la santé nutritionnelle par l’adoption et le maintien de comportements alimentaires et de santé adéquats et la création d’environnements favorables par la mise en place d’une approche communautaire et de systèmes agroforestiers innovants et durables.

Areas of focus: Agriculture and food security; Maternal and child health; Food, environment and health

Project title: Bourses de recherche destinées aux chercheurs doctoraux, post-doctoraux et en début carrière du Canada et de Chine dans les domaines du droit et de la santé

Summary: Ce projet vise à renforcer le réseau mondial de jeunes chefs de file dans trois domaines de recherche : 1) environnement et santé; 2) gouvernance et justice; 3) santé maternelle et infantile. Ces activités mettront en place les conditions favorables à l’amélioration des résultats de santé, en particulier chez la mère et l’enfant, et l’importance de l’application du droit et de la saine gouvernance afin que tous puissent mener une vie prospère en toute sécurité.

Areas of focus: Food, environment and health; Governance and justice; Maternal and child health

Project title: The Open African Innovation Research Partnership (Open AIR): New and Emerging Researcher Fellowship Program

Summary: Open AIR is a unique collaborative network of researchers working to answer two overarching questions:

  1. How can open collaborative innovation help businesses scale up and seize the new opportunities of a globally networked knowledge economy?
  2. Which intellectual property and other knowledge governance policies will best ensure that the social and economic benefits of innovation are shared inclusively?

Areas of focus: Foundations for innovation; Networked economies

Project title: QE Scholars Network for Equity in Maternal and Child Health

Summary: Researchers will identify the contextual factors that contribute to Maternal and Child Health (MCH) inequities among disadvantaged groups in different settings as well as factors that facilitate equity. This will result in new research dedicated to understanding barriers to accessing MCH among equity-seeking groups; strategies for addressing these barriers; development of a vibrant network focused on MCH equity; and improved research capacity and strengthened relationships in and across all partner institutions.

Areas of focus: Maternal and child health

Project title: University of Regina Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Program for Advanced Scholars – Innovative Approaches to Climate Change

Summary: The project will focus on developing solutions to, policy for, and social awareness of climate change. This program will create a well-rounded pool of emerging global leaders who will have the skills and connections necessary to tackle complex issues surrounding climate change

Areas of focus: Climate change

Project title: Strengthening Coastal Aquifer Resilience and Groundwater Use Against Climate Change Effects in the Caribbean

Summary: This project aims to strengthen research on the coastal aquifer resilience and groundwater use against climate change effects. The researchers will develop novel computational tools, mathematical models, and knowledge to reduce uncertainties and improve numerical predictions on climate change, salinity intrusion, groundwater contamination, sea level rise, watershed dynamics, water quality, hydrology, sediment and pollution transport, limnology, and ecological dynamics.

Areas of focus: Climate change

Project title: Global Leaders Scholarship – Seeking Sustainable Solutions in Food Security and Nutrition for Women and Children: A Tri-Country Approach

Summary: The project will address a ‘sticky’ and border-less challenge respecting food security, specifically for women and children and will strive to understand, plan, and build relationships across sites (north-south; south-south) which will introduce, facilitate, and nurture a collective or core of inter-disciplinary research scientists seeking to address a complex and shared development challenge.

Areas of focus: Agriculture and food security; Food, environment and health; Maternal and child health

Project title: Providing Sustainable Potable Water and Greenhouse Crops

Summary: The program aims to strengthen and broaden existing partnerships with LMIC institutions by enhancing their capacity in the area of clean water-energy-food technologies, linked to water and food security. The project will support research that i) develops new approaches to sustainable clean energy-water management; and ii) develops an array of innovative, clean technologies that utilize solar-thermal energy or waste-heat to: a) produce potable water, b) store thermal energy; and c) control the temperature and humidity in semi-closed greenhouses for optimal crop growth.

Areas of focus: Foundations for innovation

Project title: The Statistical Alliance for Vital Events (SAVE) Queen Elizabeth Scholarship-Advanced Scholars Program (SAVE-QES)

Summary: The main goal of the SAVE-QES program is to build exceptional capacity among scholars to use mortality evidence to improve maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes. Two specific objectives are: (i) to train scholars on methods to strengthen health and mortality information systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) for greater accountability; and (ii) to support innovative multi-disciplinary research on MCH so as to improve access to health services.

Areas of focus: Maternal and child health

Project title: Entrepreneurship Education and Training for Canada, India, China and Ghana

Summary: The QES-AS funding will help establish a consortium of North-South Universities, scholars and New Brunswick based incubators/accelerators, to create a program of collaborative research, training and public engagement. The scholars will research the entrepreneurship environment in urban and rural areas to identify and examine best practices and lessons learned associated with entrepreneurship education, start up accelerators and incubation programs.

Areas of focus: Employment and growth; Foundations for innovation

Project title: Partenariat pour l’amélioration de la santé maternelle et infantile en Afrique de l’Ouest à l’aide de la santé numérique

Summary: Le financement servira à contribuer à la conceptualisation de la santé numérique dans toutes les étapes du processus d’amélioration de la santé maternelle et infantile via une revue des paradigmes existants et le développement des bonnes pratiques numériques; de générer des projets de recherche interdisciplinaires et inter-universitaires couvrant les domaines de la formation en santé numérique, l’administration et l’évaluation d’implantation des outils électroniques pour l’amélioration de la santé maternelle et infantile; de développer une veille informationnelle numérique et électronique durable facilitant d’accès par tous; de créer un réseau et une communauté de chercheurs, mentors en santé numérique maternelle et infantile de diverses disciplines.

Areas of focus: Maternal and child health

Project title: Regulating Globalization in South and Southeast Asi

Summary: This project will support researchers whose work focuses on South and Southeast Asia, to conduct interdisciplinary research on innovative governance and justice strategies, involving state, but also and crucially, non-state actors, to mitigate the harsher effects of economic globalization.

Areas of focus: Governance and justice

Project title: Water Security as a Foundation for Healthy Communities and Sustainable Livelihoods

Summary: The objective of the research is to significantly increase the local and global academic and professional capacity related to sustainable water resources management in direct support of developing (i) climate smart agricultural systems for food security (ii) climate-proof public health services under increasingly severe drought and flood conditions and (iii) safe water supply and sanitation facilities to improve the poor health status of mothers and infants.

Areas of focus: Climate change; Food, environment and health; Maternal and child health

Project title: The University of Winnipeg Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee International Scholars Program

Summary: This project will build collaborations between UWinnipeg researchers and researchers from India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Bangladesh, and South Africa. The collaborations involve five distinct research projects: Environmental Justice in India and Canada; Maternal and Child Health in Indigenous Communities in Mexico and Canada; Decolonizing Higher Education in Canada and South Africa; Transferability and Adoption of Innovations in Sustainable Agriculture in Sri Lanka; and collaboration between the Prairie Climate Centre and colleagues from Bangladesh.

Areas of focus: Agriculture and food security; Climate change; Governance and justice; Maternal and child health

Project title: Ecological Economics, Commons Governance, and Climate Justice

Summary: This project will bring together scholars from around the world to research climate justice and democratic commons governance, in the context of an innovative ecological economics partnership.

We aim to build a research network of emerging scholars working to address the injustices resulting from global climate change through participatory democratic governance, and welcoming them to the successful ongoing Economics for the Anthropocene (E4A) program (see e4a-net.org ).

Areas of focus: Climate change; Governance and justice; Networked economies

The QES-AS is made possible with financial support from: