In late November we celebrated our 10-year affiliation with Mount Royal University. Our affiliation has resulted in providing critical applied research experience to students, leveraging research capacity, bridging campus and community, enhancing MRU’s culture of innovation and advancing MRU’s reputation for environmental stewardship. Highlights of our affiliation include:
- Provided 56 MRU students with undergraduate research opportunities through paid internships, capstone projects, work integrated learning opportunities and volunteer opportunities
- Secured over $7.7M to support applied conservation research projects
- Increased formal and informal opportunities for scholarly collaboration through research partnerships with over 100 different partners, including federal, provincial and municipal government, industry and not-for-profit organizations. This has also enhanced MRU’s profile of community engaged change-making – Miistakis acts as a conduit for collaboration and engagement between Mount Royal University and community partners
- Enhanced the scholarly reputation of Mount Royal through external communication and knowledge mobilization.
- Enhanced MRU's culture of innovation through our interdisciplinary, non-partisan and applied approach to research
- Enhanced students' exposure to interdisciplinary research through student internships, work integrated learning, mentorship, student volunteer opportunities, class lectures and case studies. This research has been diverse and has ranged from field work doing eDNA sampling, wetland surveys and snow tracking to literature reviews on the impacts of urbanization on wildlife, to communication support at conferences. We have had students work with us to draft communication strategies and social media posts and student research projects have focused on quantifying remote camera detection rates, determining wetland condition, AI testing of remote camera images, acoustic data analysis, socialization of biodiversity and economic cost benefit analyses of animal vehicle collisions. And as diverse as this research has been it has all contributed to advancing conservation!
A special thanks to everyone who came out to share in this celebration and a special thanks to our speakers – Connie van der Byl, Felix Nwaishi, Ninon Meyer, Holly Kinas and Alyssa Koscar and a big thanks to Abisola Allson, Kaitlyn Squires, Jen Demone, Roger Calachan and Spencer Voth for presenting posters.
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