21 March 2025
$22 million awarded to Indigenous-led and multi-institutional research project for Indigenous and community-based approaches to pollution risk
We are happy to share that the Technoscience Research Unit is the steward of a New Frontiers in Research Fund - Transformation stream grant that brings $22 million dollars to a collaborative research initiative to re-envision chemical risk management in a time of environmental crisis. Along with colleagues at Guelph, UBC, and Aotearoa (New Zealand), the “Transforming Chemical Risk Management with Indigenous Expertise" project brings Indigenous research methods and visions of environmental justice to the challenge of profoundly transforming how pollution and chemical risk is managed in Indigenous communities, university labs and classes, regulatory practices, and policy development.
The urgent need to reduce emissions of climate-changing gases and pollutants requires innovative approaches to chemical risk management. Forming sustainable environmental relationships for future generations is at the heart of Indigenous approaches to caring for land, waters, air, and each other. The “Transforming Chemical Risk Management with Indigenous Expertise" project brings Indigenous research methods to this challenge to profoundly transform chemical risk management in Indigenous community-based practice, university labs and classes, regulatory practices, and policy development.
As outdated methodologies like animal testing are being replaced with new ones, the importance of Indigenous knowledge about land, water, animals and plants is crucial. The project creates Indigenous methods for assessing chemical risk for future generations. By bringing diverse Indigenous knowledges together in solidarity and co-learning, the research program develops protocols, tools, and policies for chemical risk management in Canada, New Zealand, and at the international policy level. With a focus on intergenerational impact and transformation, the program will train the next generation of chemical risk professionals to lead chemical risk assessments for their communities and beyond.
This research marks an innovative shift by placing Indigenous leadership at the forefront of chemical-risk evaluation—expertise that is rarely included in frameworks under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), and the US’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Left to Right: M. Murphy and Kristen Bos (Photo Credit: John Paillé)
”Indigenous Peoples are not only disproportionately exposed to chemicals but also disproportionately have their bodies subjected to testing and evaluation with little control over research design,” says M. Murphy, who leads the project.
Supported by a federal New Frontiers in Research Fund Grant, the project includes researchers at the University of Toronto, Guelph University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Calgary, in Canada, and the Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research Institute, the University of Auckland, and Indigenous elders and knowledge holders from multiple Indigenous communities in Canada, as well as collaborators at Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority; the Policy Manager at New Zealand Ministry for the Environment and the New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner, and Te Ao Mārama Inc, a mandated Māori organization that supports local tribal members in environmental matters including mitigating chemical pollution.
This funding offers an urgent and precious opportunity for Indigenous communities in this time of growing environmental crisis. It will create tools, methods, and expertise that serve Indigenous peoples own needs and visions. The project innovatively takes the approach of learning on the land. It features Indigenous community researchers as experts in their own lands and lives in Aamjiwnaang First Nation and across the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory and Aotearoa.
The lead PI for the overall project is Professor and TRU co-director M. Murphy (Red River Métis) of University of Toronto, along with Sue Chiblow (Garden River First Nation) of Guelph University, and Gunilla Öberg (recent settler from Sweden) of UBC.
Research at the University of Toronto will be co-led by PI and TRU co-director Kristen Bos (Red River Métis) and will focus on collaborating with community researchers and scientists to build an Indigenous chemical risk platform, change curriculum, and develop lab protocols, collaborating with scientists Milica Radisic, Élyse Caron-Beaudoin, and Alán Aspuru-Guzik.
We are so excited to be building Indigenous Science, Technology, and Environment Studies Research at the University of Toronto and beyond!
Overview of our methods, 6 sub-projects, and 4 target areas.