Student funding for CEL projects
Are you a student doing curricular community-engaged research or a community-engaged project focused on climate action in the Summer and Fall 2025 terms?
You could qualify for up to $1000 in . This funding, called "Students in Community: Engaging Meaningfully for Climate Action & Resilience Summer & Fall 2025", includes:
- $1000 for you, the student (and some additional funding for transportation and materials if needed)
- up to $400 as an honorarium for your community partner(s)
- workshops to help you at any stage of your research and/or project
- the opportunity to engage in awareness and advocacy for climate action and resilience.
Plus, you'll be part of a cohort with like-minded students and inspiring community leaders. You'll also be able to showcase your work at our final CELebration event.
Are you eligible?
To qualify for this funding, you must be:
- An upper-level undergraduate or graduate student
- Enrolled in a community-engaged course or thesis during one of these periods:
- Summer 2025 cohort: (June 23 to September 2) OR
- Fall 2025 cohort: (September 15 to December 8)
- There are no grade/GPA requirements to apply.
International applicants
Due to funder restrictions, international students are not eligible for the funding portion of this program
International community partners are not eligible as a “Community Partner” unless they have a Canadian Office.
What are the benefits?
Successful applicants will receive support through tailored workshops and peer-learning opportunities.
- Foundations of Community Engagement (online)
- Anti-stigma Training (in person)
- Knowledge Mobilization/Communication for Social Change (online)
- Building a Reflective Practice with Arts-based Methods (in person)
What's required of participants?
Program requirements
As a funding recipient, you'll be required to:
- Register for a BrightSpace course that will house relevant resources
- Complete (or have completed) the asynchronous Tri-Council Course on Research Ethics certification (approx. 2 hours)
- Participate in two peer-learning conversations (approx. 2 hours)
- Attend at least two out of four workshops* (approx. 3-5 hours)
- Create at least one knowledge mobilization piece about your project (deadline for both summer and fall cohort is Dec. 15, 2025). Instructions and guidance will be provided (and elaborated further at the Knowledge Mobilization workshop)
- Participate in the Final CELebration event in December (approx. 2.5 hours). Share a reflection with a visual, spoken, written, recorded, etc. at the Final CELebration*
- Sign the Project Participant Agreement form (will be attached to welcome email) (approx. 10 min)
- Complete an end-of-program online evaluation (approx. 10 min)
Frequently asked questions
Students will receive $1000 to support their community-engaged research and their community partner will also receive up to $400 honorarium.
Our funders have specific eligibility requirements for host/community partners. Please review the following to see if your community partner is eligible:
Eligible community partners:
- Private organizations
Includes: small businesses, bodies incorporated or unincorporated, for-profit band councils. - Not-for-profit organizations
Includes: local community, charitable, voluntary organizations, unions, not-for-profit band councils, Provincial or Territorial Non-governmental organizations. - If the organization has a charitable number, even if it is mostly funded by the government, the organization is eligible as a community partner
Please note: In some cases, a community partner may be managed by a larger organization (for example, schools and hospitals). In these cases, we may need you to search the school board / division name or health authority name in the
Ineligible community partners:
- Post-secondary institutions are not eligible.
- Federal, Provincial, Territorial and Municipal Government;
- Members of the House of Commons and the Senate; organizations that engage in partisan political activities;
- Finance sector employers with 500 or more employees (includes all branches); and organizations for which you are paying for a service (i.e., software or training) are typically not considered as eligible partners
Contact celoffice@uvic.ca, or check out the CEL website for examples of community-based projects if you're unsure about eligibility.
Knowledge mobilization is an umbrella term for any activity that helps make academic learning and knowledge accessible and interesting to the communities we work with. This program will provide a supported space to learn to do knowledge mobilization and social change communication.
You'll work closely with your community partner about what a meaningful knowledge mobilization output looks like for both of you, considering things such as goals, capacity, and time.
Some examples could look like:
- a policy brief
- an educational lesson plan or train-the-trainer workshop
- a public presentation for the community partner
- a resource toolkit
- public communication (e.g., blog posts, op-eds, social media engagement or a series of social media engagement, a podcast episode aimed at making findings or research accessible to a broad audience)
- knowledge mobilization tools (e.g., awareness campaigns, infographics, newsletters to create awareness about the research/project, hosting a knowledge exchange event such as a community roundtable, pop-up events, community workshops, and presentations)
- a creative or expressive art piece (e.g., dance, painting, song, stand-up, theatre, etc.)
No, sorry. This funding opportunity is reserved for community-engaged experiences with community partners offered for credit through UVic.
No, sorry. The funding agency funding this program states that international students are not eligible to receive the stipend.
However, if you'd like to sign-up for the workshops and participate in the learning, we would be happy to have you. Please email celoffice@uvic.ca to discuss potential options.
The focus on climate action and resilience is broadly defined. Here is a list of ideas that would be relevant to the scope of the program:
- Sustainable concrete solutions in engineering, wetland restoration, consumer behaviour, climate justice and human rights,
- Indigenous land-based knowledge
- Zero-waste projects, regenerative farming practices, permaculture
- Sustainable fashion
- Transportation
- Community mapping
- Nature-based solutions and nature-based learning
- Climate grief and anxiety
- Waste management/circular economy
- Climate literacy in schools/advocacy and awareness work around climate change
- Participating in local ecological restoration efforts
- Monitoring soil and water contamination
- Green app designs
- Advocacy and awareness work around a climate change
- Community garden development
- Arts-based educational/awareness initiatives
This is not an exhaustive list. If you have an idea and want to confirm whether it fits with the theme of climate action and resilience, let us know.
Apply for funding
In your application, you can select either Summer 2025 OR Fall 2025.
Need help?
Contact the CEL office with questions or for support.