How do rural regions attract and keep highly skilled workers? Check out Natasha D'Souza's research summary examining Bruce County’s energy sector and the role of a dominant industry in shaping talent, governance, and regional identity.
Take a read of the research summary at https://ruraldev.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Research-Summary-DSouza.pdf
A new peer-reviewed article titled “Revisiting rural economic development: New Localism’s potential in Canadian local government” shines a timely spotlight on the growing pressures facing rural communities across Canada. As local governments are increasingly asked to take on roles beyond basic services, many rural municipalities are struggling to keep up. Limited staff, tight budgets, and expanding responsibilities have created real challenges for communit
During the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of Canadians packed up city life and moved to rural communities. But what did that sudden shift really mean on the ground? A new article in Plan Canada, “Reflecting on the Urban Exodus: Rural Planning for City Expats,” explores how rural municipalities across Ontario experienced — and responded to — this change.
Written by Sara Epp, Christopher Fullerton, Natasha Gaudio Harrison, and Ryan Gibson, the article draws o
Congratulations to Natasha D'Souza for successfully defending her Rural Studies PhD dissertation titled “Space, Place and Power: Case Study of Highly Skilled Talent and Governance Dynamics in The Bruce County Energy Sector".
Stay tuned for electronic access to Natasha's PhD dissertation.
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The Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation recently hosted a webinar as part of the New Researcher Forum series titled "Mobilizing Knowledge for Stronger Rural Futures". Prof. Ryan Gibson explored what he called the “knowledge paradox" - while more research exists than ever before, it often fails to reach the people who can use it most. Too often valuable rural research is locked behind technical language, paywalls, limited internet access, or simply doe
Congratulations to Louis Helps for successfully defending his Rural Studies PhD dissertation titled "Migrant Stories, Industry Narratives: A Critical Discourse Analysis on Migrant Labour in Canadian Agriculture". Stay tuned for electronic access to Lou's PhD dissertation.
Formal agricultural research is often conducted by professional researchers, however, recently there has been in an increase in farmer-led initiatives such as the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario’s (EFAO) Farmer-Led Research Program (FLRP). The Connecting the Dots initiative is excited to share a research summary about the impacts of the FLRP – Farmer Knowledge as Formal Knowledge: A Case Study of Farmer-Led Research in Ontario, Canada. The summar
A newly published chapter in Critical Futures: Community-Engaged Research in a Time of Social Transformation (University of Toronto Press) invites readers to rethink what it means to live, work, and thrive in rural places today. Written by Sean Markey, Ashleigh Weeden, Ryan Gibson, Greg Halseth, and Laura Ryser, “Community-Engaged Research and the ‘Right to Be Rural’” challenges long-held assumptions that cast rural communities as outdated, declining, or s
On November 4, 2025, Dr. Ryan Gibson delivered a presentation titled “Local Governance in Canada” at the Department of International and Regional Studies, Hokkaido University of Education in Hakodate, Japan. The session brought together students, faculty, and community partners to explore how Canadian approaches to local governance and rural revitalization could inform Japan’s regional development strategies.
During his talk, Dr. Gibson compared the geogra
20-26 October 2025 is International Open Access Week – a global event dedicated to openness in scholarship and research. This year’s theme, “Who Owns Our Knowledge?”, invites all of us to reflect on who controls the production and sharing of knowledge—and how we might open it up for the wider public good.
The School of Environmental Design and Rural Development is excited to host three open access journals: Canadian Agri-food & ...
