Living Knowledge Network Delegation to Girona, Spain June 26-29 2024

Exciting news! From June 26-29, a 12-person team from the Living Lab Network will present at the biannual European-based Living Knowledge Network (LKN) community-campus conference in Girona,

Spain. The team includes members from the Songhees, Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum, Kwikwasut’inuxw, and Pauquachin Nations, the Métis Nation, staff, youth, and students from the W̱SÁNEĆ School Board, PEPAKEṈ HÁUTW̱ Foundation, SD#61 Indigenous Education, Living Lab staff, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Camosun College’s Centre for Indigenous Education & Community Connections and UVic faculty. The Office of the Vice President of Indigenous and the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement from the UVic provided core funding for Indigenous team members to present.

The delegation includes PENAC Underwood, SX̱ EDŦELISIYE (Renee Sampson), Desiree Jones, Jessica Joseph, Ruth Lyall, Judith Lyn Arney, Alex Harris, Kyle Clarke, Sarah Jim, Maeve Lydon, UVic Associate Professor Darcy Mathews, and Professor Heather Castleden.

LKN is a European-based and globally-connected network of individuals and organizations involved in Science Shops and similar entities. These organizations focus on public engagement and the involvement of Civil Society Organizations in Research & Innovation. Budd Hall, UVic Professor Emeritus with the School of Public Administration, Living Lab Advisor, and UNESCO Co-Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, is a long-time active member and supporter of LKN. This network also supports the work of the UNESCO Chair. More information can be found on the UNESCO Chair’s website.

The Living Lab Network partners’ presentation titles include:

• ĆELÁṈEN TŦE ṮEṮÁĆES, the European premiere of a new feature film produced and narrated by W̱SÁNEĆ community members. (Premiered at UVic on December 11th; see the story in the Living Lab Newsletter)
• Relational Restoration: Healing Ourselves and the Land
• Archaeology and Indigenous Knowledge: Transformative and Decolonizing Science and Practice
• In-Spiring Citizen Science Supporting Ecosystem Restoration and Resurgence on the West Coast of Canada/Turtle Island: The Living Lab Network’s Indigenous Youth Stewardship Program

Our common goal for the Living Lab Network and this trip is to create long-term community-driven research, program partnerships, and youth-community-campus exchanges with European and global partners. We aim to represent a community-based Indigenous worldview of so-called “Canada” in Europe, led and spoken by community voices and priorities. Next-generation engagement, the conference theme, is at the heart of our everyday work.