Our Program

A SHARED Future is a CIHR-funded program (from 2017-2021, extended to 2024 due to COVID-19) of research that brings together stories of healing and reconciliation through intersectoral partnerships connected with renewable energy projects. The program examines how these partnerships bring to light new and restored understandings of integrative health that offer opportunities for a new era of nation-to-nation collaborations between Indigenous peoples and Canadian governments.

The program is now in its “sunset” phase and much of the research and related activities are concluding. This website gives you access about how we governed the program, details about our various research projects, who out partners have been over the years, and provides information about our research findings and knowledge outputs.

Our Governance

A SHARED Future is governed by a Programmatic Steering Committee, Executive Body, and International Advisory Committee that work together to ensure all projects and program activities remain consistent with A SHARED Future’s goals and objectives. We strive to Ensure transparency, consistency, and clarity in our purpose, striving for consensus at all times. At times, we turn to our Team’s Elder for guidance when consensus cannot be achieved.

Our Projects

A SHARED Future supports ten thematically-linked projects across Canada that study various types of intersectoral partnerships, with an overall focus on Indigenous peoples’ leadership in renewable energy conservation, efficiency, and development

Program Updates

Click here to view past bi-monthly updates and recent news and media about A SHARED Future.

A SHARED Future

The Achieving Strength, Health, and Autonomy through Renewable Energy Development for the Future (A SHARED Future) program of research (2017-2024) is about reconciliation between knowledge systems; it must be foundational to our work together. From this premise, renewable energy has been our chosen platform for exploring reconciliation and moving towards healing our relationships with each other and the world around us.

Our goal is to bring forward stories of reconciliation and healing in intersectoral partnerships under the umbrella of renewable energy conservation, efficiency, and development. In doing so, we wish to bring to light new and restored understandings of integrative health by sharing our stories, resources, and tools with Indigenous and Settler governments, industries, ENGOs, universities, and beyond.

The A SHARED Future Research Program supported 9 thematically-linked projects across Canada that studied various types of intersectoral partnerships, with an overall focus on Indigenous peoples’ leadership and governance in renewable energy conservation, efficiency, and development. Make a statement about the over-arching focus on CR-GBA across all projects.

As we enter the sunsetting phase of our research program, we are focusing on knowledge mobilization. In Summer 2022 we held a Final Gathering of those from our team (community partners, national organizational partners, international advisory committee members, trainees, and members of our programmatic steering committee) who were able to attend. Adjacent is a 20-minute video showcasing our program and key reflections after several years of learning together.

Heather Castleden and Diana Lewis
Co-Directors, A SHARED Future

“A SHARED FUTURE 2022 SUMMER GATHERING: GLOBAL INTERCONNECTEDNESS BEYOND AN ENERGY FUTURE” is now available for download. Click here to view.

Research Objectives

1.
Explore Intersectoral Strategies

Explore intersectoral strategies being used to implement renewable energy development in Indigenous jurisdictions (i.e., Indigenous-led, joint venture, co-operative, or ‘business as usual’ models) and natural boundary areas (i.e., watershed governance) in order to generate a framework for understanding what ‘successful’ intersectoral partnerships look like.

2.
Assess Knowledge Implementation

Assess whether intersectoral partners engaged in this program are applying Indigenous knowledge systems in renewable energy development in both Indigenous and settler contexts and, if so, identify and document how and why, and if not, why not, while providing tools to help them do so.

3.
Identify Health Impacts

Identify and monitor the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health impacts of such development, in relation to existing extractive industries’ cumulative impacts in Indigenous territories over time, across the gender spectrum, through the life course, and from the individual to the community level.

4.
Consider Gendered Dimensions

Consider gendered components of our research, particularly culturally-relevant sex and gender-based analyses (CRSGBA) in each of the various projects within the A SHARED Future program, and nominate and consult with two CRSGBA co-champions to ensure uptake of this objective.

5.
Advance and Share Knowledge

Advance new knowledge and share insights generated through our program with communities, industry, and government knowledge users through conventional and innovative channels.