Thank you for this opportunity to speak on this topic.

I'm an associate professor and an accredited professional planner in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph. I'm an interdisciplinary scholar working on the human dimensions of environmental change and research governance. I've been working closely with Inuit and first nations partners in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Canada in various capacities including consultant, student and faculty since 2006.

Much of what I'm going to discuss today relates to work in Nunavut. I'll be focusing on two points, the first of which is whether Arctic and northern populations have the research infrastructure, tools and funds to participate in research.

In my opinion, some research grants are catching up with the need and providing new, more accessible opportunities for northern populations and Inuit specifically, some of which are federal. My experience in getting northern partners to apply for these funds would suggest that some tri-council portals and application requirements are somewhat maladapted to variability in computer literacy and access to reliable Internet in some communities. One has to wonder if those opportunities are reaching everyone equitably. As a result, most opportunities still require some measure of southern-based leadership, although I do see promising signs in the creation of degree-granting colleges and universities in the Arctic, such as Yukon University, for instance, that build tremendous capacity in the north for the north.

This being said, physical community research space is lacking. We often forget that much of research practice has nothing to do with collecting information in the field or on the land. Most is spent in front of a screen, applying for funds, analyzing and interpreting samples and data and writing about the work. An ongoing study co-led with Inuit group Ikaarvik in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, and one of my graduate students, Sarah-Anne Thompson, suggests that community research still occurs in people's homes. This may seem fine from a southern perspective, but it ignores the extent to which Nunavut and other jurisdictions are facing housing crises and a lack of safe, healthy indoor space to live and gather.

The use of research stations for community research is a grey area that I've also been reflecting on for a few years. There are a good number of federal, territorial and university-owned research stations in the Arctic, serving communities in a variety of ways. I've been working closely with Environment and Climate Change Canada in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, and have made use of the research station there for years now. My colleagues at ECCC have been very interested in supporting community science, but there seem to be a number of barriers to allowing local use of these facilities. However, this is beyond the scope of my work for now.

In my view, this is not the solution, though. If Arctic peoples want to participate actively in science undertaken on their traditional territories, they need physical spaces to do so and need to lead in their creation.

My second point is whether Arctic science and research collaboration is meaningfully conducted with local and indigenous people. Inuit knowledge, or Inuit Qauijimajatuqangit, including land-based skills, has been essential to researchers and science in the region for almost 100 years. This relationship has evolved substantially, with various technological and transportation advances, but it remains important.

I'll focus here on the word “meaningful”, which, in my view, warrants much more reflection. The meaningfulness of the collaboration or partnership is directly tied to the level of Inuit community influence and, ultimately, control over the research agenda in their homeland. Communities will probably never be able to lead the vast majority of research that takes place on their territory because research in the Arctic is vast, diverse and requires tremendous resources. Nonetheless, I think self-determination should be central within a negotiated Arctic research policy.

Pulling from recent quantitative systematic reviews of the literature that I led on the evolution, degree and nature of community engagement in Arctic research, here are a few highlights to consider.

Local engagement in Arctic research has only increased slightly since 1965, with a few important nuances that I don't have time to discuss right now.

Arctic author-led studies are negligible, making up less than 1% from 1965 to 2020. We did find that 10% of studies in the last 10 years have had local or community-based authors, which is really promising.

Finally, the focus on climate change and global change could be one of the most important and significant drivers in promoting community engagement in Arctic science presently, which points to a real and genuine interest in engaging in that sort of science.

Thank you very much.