The Ban Righ Centre
Project: Identifying Barriers and Challenges for Students with Children
The Ban Righ Centre is seeking support to better identify and understand the barriers and challenges faced by students with children (both undergraduate and graduate). This information will provide a better overall picture of the challenges students with children face while at Queen’s and would help offices and student service units to understand what's working well and areas for improvement, helping to create a more inclusive campus.
Kingston Economic Development Corporation
Project 1: Pathways for Newcomer Entrepreneurs
In its 2023-2025 Immigration Levels Plan, the federal government set its immigration target for 2023 at 465,000 new permanent residents. The country is also expected to welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024 and another 500,000 in 2025. Kingston’s newcomer population between 2016 to 2021 grew at a rate of 700 newcomers per year representing 30.8% of the city’s population growth. According to the 2021 Census, 15.4% of Kingston's population is made up of individuals born outside of Canada (not including international students studying in Kingston). Kingston Economic Development is interested in developing programs and services to specifically support newcomers interested in entrepreneurship and starting/or purchasing a business in Kingston.
Project 2: Activating the Untapped Workforce
Over the past 5 years, Kingston experienced a significantly stronger population and economic growth compared to the 10-year historical average. Growth is being driven by workforce demand across all sectors, successful new business investment attraction, and expansion of existing businesses. Currently, the city’s unemployment rate is near a 5-year low, yet the labour force participation rate is 63.7%. Activating non-traditional workers (i.e. domestic and international students, newcomers, retiring military, federal offenders, seniors) can assist employers in accessing the labour supports they require and connecting individuals with meaningful work opportunities in Kingston.
City of Kingston
Project 1: Sustainable Development Goals for the City of Kingston – 17 Rooms
Building off the successful PhD-CI project from 2022/2023 that focused on research surrounding the proposal of a framework to localize the UN SDGs within Kingston, the City of Kingston and its community partners are looking to further explore recommendations surrounding the implementation of a community-wide “17 Rooms” exercise from this initial project. A “17 Rooms” exercise allows individuals to come together to share ideas, connect with others from different backgrounds to develop initiatives and projects that contribute to the development of a relevant, sustainable and localized SDG framework. The 2023/2024 project would build off the previous research done around this topic to further develop this process and lead in the implementation of a community-wide “17 Rooms” exercise for Kingston.
Project 2: Developing a Community Food System Report Card for the City of Kingston
The City of Kingston, along with a network of local food providers, is looking for support in the development of a Community Food System Report Card for the Kingston region. By exploring promising practices in other communities and conducting research on the local Kingston food ecosystem, the city is interested in gaining insight on the process of developing of community food system report card to help monitor and build a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities surrounding food within the Kingston community. By providing greater understanding of the key issues, as a city we can better inform a community food strategy, monitor progress towards food sovereignty and evaluate policies and programs that foster an equitable and sustainable food systems for all.
Kingston, Frontenac, and Area Public Health (KFL&A)
Project title: Organizational Implications of AI within a Public Health Context
The project with KFL&A Public Health will involve researching the organizational implications of AI and applications like ChatGPT. This may entail online research, key informant interviews and surveys. Some questions would be:
- What are all the uses of ChatGPT for a public health organization?
- What are personal health information implications?
- When is it not acceptable to use?
- What are the copyright implications?
- What are the risks to the agency?
- What are the benefits to the agency
- What are best practices for use in a public health organization who is publicly funded and a health data custodian?