Calling all future SSHRC Storytellers: why does your research matter?
Through SSHRC’s annual Storytellers contest, students are encouraged to “show Canadians how social sciences and humanities research affects our lives, our world and our future prosperity.” | Photo by Concordia University
How is our world changing? Are we ready for the challenges that lie ahead?
Every day, researchers in the social sciences and humanities tackle these sorts of questions as they engage with society’s most pressing issues.
And, for the past eight years, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has been putting its ear to the ground to unearth the best of these research stories from across the country.
Through SSHRC’s annual Storytellers contest, post-secondary students from every Canadian institution are encouraged to “show Canadians how social sciences and humanities research affects our lives, our world and our future prosperity.”
Participants are invited to demonstrate in three minutes or 300 words how SSHRC-funded research makes a difference in our society. Contestants from past years have covered fields ranging from development economics to gender identity, environmental management and game culture.
The format is flexible; researchers can use the medium of their choice to tell their story in a creative and innovative way. The featured project can be either the student’s or a professor’s (with their permission).
The top 25 finalists each receive $3,000 and go on to compete in the Storytellers Showcase at the 2020 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in London, Ontario.
In 2018, three students represented Concordia among the top 25. Meaghen Buckley, a master's student in drama therapy, Eric Powell, a PhD candidate in communication studies, and Jay Marquis-Manicom, a master's student in anthropology, were among the SSHRC’s national finalists.
Marquis-Manicom was selected as one of the final five winners for his text-based submission. To gather data for his master’s thesis, in which he initiated an ethnography of an alt-right organization, the student had undertaken several months of field research.
Buckley’s research focus was on understanding the body’s expressive potential in psychotherapy, while Eric Powell investigated ways in which sound shapes our individual experience of space and time, specifically in urban environments.
Participants have until January 28 to submit their stories.
Find out more about the SSHRC Storytellers contest.
