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Reshaping climate innovation through community-centred collaboration
What do transportation systems, seniors and Vancouver's Downtown Eastside all have in common?
At first glance, not much.
Yet, these seemingly unrelated things are all part of the same climate change conversation. They’re exactly the kinds of issues that are central to Simon Fraser University (SFU)'s Strategic Research Plan 2023–2028, which prioritizes climate innovation for community impact.
Climate change affects nearly every aspect of life, from transportation systems to housing and food security, yet expertise has traditionally been organized in silos, making systems-level solutions harder to achieve.
SFU Climate Innovation is helping bridge those divides. It supports researchers in connecting across disciplines and working with communities and partners to co-create integrated, collaborative approaches designed to tackle some of society’s most pressing climate challenges.
Community-centred research helps reimagine transportation
The Sustainable Community-Resilient Alternative Mobility (SCRAM) project is one initiative supported by SFU Climate Innovation. The interdisciplinary team includes experts from SFU and the University of British Columbia, along with partners such as the City of Burnaby, TransLink, Mobi By Rogers and Evo Car Share. The project is exploring how communities can reduce emissions while advancing accessibility and quality of life, as well as the environmental effects of decarbonizing urban transportation.
Rather than starting with predetermined solutions, the research team organized community co-creation workshops and conducted travel surveys in Burnaby to better understand transportation needs, preferences and concerns. These insights helped shape the Urban Transportation Emissions Calculator, along with other health outcome measures, now being used to test transportation scenarios and their impacts on emissions, health and community resilience.
For Vahid Hosseini, associate professor in SFU's School of Sustainable Energy Engineering and SCRAM’s lead principal investigator, the project's iterative approach created benefits beyond the research itself.
"Interdisciplinary research can be challenging because we don’t all speak the same scientific language," he says. "But the ongoing feedback loop we had with the community helped to smooth out a lot of those challenges and ensure the research remained grounded in community needs."
The model behind the approach
SCRAM's approach reflects a broader model that SFU Climate Innovation, part of the Research and Innovation portfolio, is helping to advance across the university.
“With the scale of intersecting challenges we’re facing, we need research that has impact. That means creating the conditions that enable effective relationships with communities and groups that need those solutions,” says Deborah Harford, director of Strategy & Operations at SFU Climate Innovation.
“Climate Innovation works with researchers across disciplines, as well as multiple expert SFU operational units whose work is essential to the success of interdisciplinary research projects. It draws on key skills such as partnership development, knowledge mobilization, grant development and fundraising, and community engagement.”
Building climate readiness with and for vulnerable communities
That commitment to community is shaping work in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
As climate impacts intensify, social service organizations are increasingly being called upon to respond to extreme heat, wildfire smoke, flooding and other climate-related disruptions while navigating significant resource constraints. Through the Mapping Climate Readiness for the Social Service Sector in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside project, SFU’s Climate Innovation, Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) and ACT – Action on Climate Team are working with these organizations, who are serving some of the region’s most vulnerable residents, to help strengthen their climate readiness and resilience.
The project has identified opportunities to strengthen adaptive capacity while advancing broader goals related to equity, housing and health. The work has already resulted in a climate readiness roadmap and practical resources co-developed through workshops that centred local expertise and lived experience, with lessons that can help inform social service organizations across British Columbia and Canada.
Planting the seeds for ideas to take root
While SFU Climate Innovation has supported large, complex initiatives, not every project starts at that scale. Through its seed fund program, interdisciplinary teams receive funding and research-for-impact supports to help build partnerships, co-design projects with communities and develop promising ideas into future research and funding opportunities.
Creating space to explore unconventional climate solutions
One such project is Promoting Heat Resilience among Older Adults through Group-Based Arts, part of the Comprehensive Approach to Enhance Older Adults’ Preparedness for Extreme Heat (COPE) study co-led by Theresa Pauly, assistant professor in SFU’s Department of Gerontology. By connecting health, aging and theatre in unexpected ways, the project, which received one of the inaugural 2025 seed grants, explores how creative arts can help older adults navigate the growing risks associated with extreme heat—risks that the deadly heat dome severely exposed in 2021.
Participants engage in storytelling, drama and visual arts activities designed to help process experiences, strengthen resilience and foster social connection. The 10-week program will culminate in a co-created theatre performance, alongside a film that captures participants' experiences and supports broader knowledge sharing.
“For many people, climate change can feel overwhelming or even insurmountable,” says Pauly. “Arts-based approaches offer a way to work through those emotions, build connection with others and regain a sense of agency.”
The project highlights the growing value of arts-informed approaches in climate research and demonstrates how seed funding can help researchers explore new ideas, build partnerships and create foundations for future impact. Building on its inaugural year, the Climate Innovation Seed Funds program returns in 2026 with $100,000 available in funding support to help grow the next round of early-stage, high-ambition projects. Applications are open until July 31.
Different projects, shared purpose
As the challenges posed by climate change continue to evolve, so too must the knowledge, tools and approaches needed to address them. Just past the midway mark of SFU's Strategic Research Plan, projects like SCRAM, the Downtown Eastside climate readiness initiative and COPE show how, with the support of SFU Climate Innovation, researchers and communities can come together to build a more resilient and sustainable future.
This is the fourth story in a series highlighting the progress and impact of SFU’s Strategic Research Plan. Read the first three stories in the series on supporting: graduate students, early-career researchers (new faculty) and postdoctoral fellows.
Learn more about SFU’s ongoing progress and other initiatives advancing community-centred climate innovation in the Strategic Research Plan, its implementation plan and the midway progress snapshot (PDF).