Meg Holden, Ph.D. Associate Professor Urban Studies and Geography Simon Fraser University 2nd Floor 515 West Hastings St. Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3 tel. 778.782.7888 fax. 778.782.5297 email. mholden at sfu.ca

Home | About | Courses | Publications Current Research Projects Comparative Critical Urban Sustainability This project is building a critical, interdisciplinary framework for understanding sustainability, and in particular the relationship of the idea of sustainability for cities to notions of integration, holism, and social learning. In the first phase of empirical work, 2010-2012, Dr. Holden is working in collaboration with researchers at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, to compare sustainability goals and outcomes in Vancouver and Melbourne, Australia. Video from Dr. Holden's interview on Docklands TV show "Urban Goes Green" from May 2011 can be viewed here. Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) (Project website) CIRS is a green, smart, humane and ultimately sustainable building, research facility, and site of education and transformation toward sustainability. The building is scheduled for completion in 2010 and will be located at the University of British Columbia Campus. Along with Dr. Stephen Sheppard, Dr. Holden serves as Co-Chair of Research Cluster B1, focused on decision making tools and models for sustainability. Regional Vancouver Urban Observatory (RVu) (Project website) RVu is a long-term facility for the measurement and monitoring of sustainability indicators in the Vancouver region. It is also the first Canadian member of the UN-Habitat/Metropolis Commission 5 Global Urban Observatory network. Dr. Holden is the founding director of RVu, which is currently engaged in a number of related indicators, community and municipal policy engagement, and international research activities. Video from Dr. Holden's May 2011 presentation to the Australian Community Indicators Network, entitled Best Practice and Emerging Principles in the Community Indicators Movement can be viewed here. Metro Vancouver’s Vital Signs 2010(Project website)(Project blog) Building on the research and expertise of RVu, and in partnership with the Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia, Dr. Holden and RVu researchers conducted the secondary research for Metro Vancouver’s Vital Signs 2010, as we did for the project in 2007 and 2008. This annual regional check-up is sponsored by the Vancouver Foundation and, among more than a dozen municipal partners nation-wide, by the Community Foundations of Canada. The Learning City(Project website) The Learning City is a research collaborative engaged in investigating the implications of and opportunities for sustainability education at the university level. As a founding member of the collaborative, Dr. Holden has been involved in designing and running pilot Learning City courses at Vancouver’s Great Northern Way Campus, conducting research on these courses, and evolving the results into a proposed new Master of Sustainability Leadership degree program.