Congratulations to Alex Petric for successfully defending his Master of Science in Rural Planning and Development thesis titled "Beyond the Smart City: Accessing Open Data in Rural Ontario". Alex's research explored if rural Ontario municipalities were current pursuing, or interested in pursuing, open data initiatives. The electronic version of the thesis will be available shortly - check back soon!
On November 30th, the Regional Forum on Rural Newcomer Integration was a great example of a region coming together to improve newcomer integration throughout rural communities. The Regional Forum focussed on equipping employers with the knowledge and tools to be effective in attracting and retaining newcomer employees.
The room was full of municipal staff looking to support employers, employers who had previously been successful at newcomer integration to
The Ontario College of Agriculture at the University of Guelph recently celebrated the achievements of students. Congratulations goes out to the following:
Mallory Smith (2nd year Rural Planning and Development student) for receiving the Rural Planning Travel Grant and the Rural Planning and Development Alumni ScholarshipTimothy Hunting (2nd year Rural Planning and Development student) for receiving the Rural Planning Travel Grant
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Ashleigh Weeden, a PhD Student in the Rural Studies program, has been selected as one of 25 emerging scholars from around the world to participate in the 2019 ERSA/OECD Winter School at the Trento Centre for Local Development in Trento, Italy in January 2019.
As a highly competitive intensive program, the ERSA Winter School, in collaboration with the OECD Spatial Productivity Lab, provides PhD students and young researchers with the very latest advances...
What if communities had an alternative source of funds to facilitate service delivery? Could these funds compensate for the challenges confronted related to large distances and low densities? Would the chronic challenges of service-withdrawal from the abdication of provincial and federal governments be overcome? How would access to alternative funding change the dynamics of rural sustainability, if at all? These are the questions Dr. Ryan Gibson'
On November 8, 2018, Ashleigh Weeden (PhD Student - University of Guelph) delivered a workshop at the Canadian Open Data Summit in Niagara Falls, Ontario that encouraged participants to rethink what they think they know about rural communities. The session focused on core principles critical to modern rural development in the digital era – place, people, and policy – and emphasized the importance of rural communities to Canada’s digital agenda as the natio
Last week in Saskatoon rural community leaders, businesses, nonprofit organizations, governments, researchers, and students gathered to discuss rural issues at the Health and Shared Prosperity: 30th Annual Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation Conference. The conference brought 150 rural leaders from across Canada and internationally together to discuss the future of rural issues. The School of Environmental Design and Rural Development was we
June 19th, 2018 marks a historic day in Canada – it’s when the Senate approved Bill C-45, The Cannabis Act. The act states that recreational cannabis will officially be legal to cultivate, produce, distribute, retail and consume on October 17th, 2018. With four months to prepare for legalization, provinces and local governments appear to be scrambling to create policies that aligns with the legal federal requirements.
On September 27, Tracey H...
Tracey Harvey, PhD candidate in Rural Studies, recently spoke with the Arrow Lakes News regarding the upcoming cannabis legalization and what it might mean for rural regions. You can read the full article here: https://www.arrowlakesnews.com/news/pot-legalization-will-force-big-adjustments-to-kootenay-economy-society/.
For further information on Tracey's research visit: https://ruralbclegalizationstudy.wordpress.com/.
Neil Stoop successfully defended his Master of Science in Rural Planning and Development thesis today. For the past year, Neil has been working on his thesis titled "Understanding Rural: A Comparison of Academic, Political, and Lay Discourses of Rural". Here is the abstract for Neil's work:
Rural is a word, which has many meanings and means different things to different people. Definitions of rural are often sorted into four broad categories; de
