Selkirk Innovates

It was a full house for the Resilient Small Towns and Peripheral Regions session at the Canadian Association of Geographers / Association Canadienne des Géographes annual meeting in Victoria, BC, last week.

Selkirk College’s Regional Innovation Chair in Rural Economic Development, Dr. Sarah-Patricia Breen, and College of the Rockies’ Manager of Applied Research, Dr. Paul Tiege, co-presented on their new Shock Value project exploring regional economic resilience in rural communities.

Thank you to the Economic Trust of the Southern Interior of British Columbia (ETSI-BC) for supporting this project.

Learn more about the Regional Innovation Chair’s research: https://selkirk.ca/research-innovation/regional-innovation-chair

is the applied research division of .

Thank you to Mitacs for interviewing Dr. Morgan Dehnel, Selkirk College’s Ion Source Research Chair.

Read the full interview: https://www.mitacs.ca/our-innovation-insights/powering-next-generation-innovation-building-canadas-ion-source-research-capacity/

Learn more about the Selkirk Ion-source Research Centre: https://selkirk.ca/research-innovation/selkirk-ion-source-research-centre

is the applied research division of .

What does it take to build Canada's next generation of advanced technology, and the talent needed to power it?

In our latest Q&A, Dr. Morgan Dehnel, Ion Source Research Chair at Selkirk College's Ion-source Research Centre (SIRC), shares how a growing network of collaborators, including TRIUMF, D-Pace, the University of Victoria, the University of Saskatchewan, Polytechnique Montréal, and international partners in France, is advancing ion-source technologies. Ion technology is a foundational tool with applications in healthcare, semiconductors, clean energy, and emerging quantum technologies.

Supported by Mitacs, highly skilled students and researchers are helping move these innovations closer to commercialization while building the specialized skills needed to support Canada's future workforce.

Read the full conversation: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0vTW5K0

The Mass Timber Connections and Constructability Hub—BCIT: British Columbia Institute of Technology's mobile mass timber training platform—took a road trip to the Selkirk Technology Access Centre in Trail, BC, to give Selkirk College students direct, practical experience in construction and fabrication techniques.

Students spent a week getting hands-on experience rigging and hoisting glulam posts and beams, assembling them using pre-engineered connections and custom steel components, and attaching CLT wall and floor panels.

The workshop is part of a growing collaboration between Selkirk College and BCIT to build regional workforce capacity in mass timber—one of British Columbia’s fastest-growing sustainable construction sectors.

Thanks to industry partners .ca, Kalesnikoff, , Hamill Creek Timber Homes

Learn more at selkirk.ca/news/selkirk-college-and-bcit-collaborate-mass-timber-training

Selkirk Innovates

Within a fast-changing global landscape, rural places are seeking sustainable pathways to community development. Intentional growth of the outdoor recreation sector offers a host of potential benefits, so long as communities are thoughtful in their development approach and manage common challenges and barriers to success.

"Outdoor Recreation as a Community Development Strategy in Rural British Columbia: Bridges and Barriers to Success" is a new peer-reviewed journal article recently published in the Journal of Rural and Community Development.

Read the article: https://journals.brandonu.ca/jrcd/article/view/3067/

The article is based on the Outdoor Recreation for Community and Economic Development guidebook project, commissioned by the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC and developed by Selkirk Innovates, with funding from the Rural Economic Development and Infrastructure Program (REDIP).

This research explores how outdoor recreation can support economic diversification, community wellbeing, stewardship, resident attraction and retention, and rural resilience, while also highlighting challenges such as volunteer burnout, funding gaps, environmental pressures, and conflict management.

Read the guidebook: https://www.orcbc.ca/outdoor-recreation-communities-guidebook

Thank you to authors Lauren Rethoret, Sarah-Patricia Breen, Jessica Froese, and Louise Pedersen, and to the many communities, organizations, and practitioners across BC who contributed insights to the project.

is the applied research division of Selkirk College.

Local communities are constantly navigating complex decisions. Questions about housing, workforce availability, and service delivery are interconnected, evolving, and uncertain. Data help make sense of this complexity.

Population data is a powerful starting point. It helps us understand who lives in a community, what is changing, and where pressures may be emerging across that community. The data doesn’t give us answers. Instead, it helps us see different stories and ask better questions.

Read more in the latest State of the Basin feature article: https://stateofthebasin.ca/feature/seeing-stories-in-population-data

State of the Basin research is conducted by Selkirk College faculty and students at , with funding support from the Columbia Basin Trust.

By some accounts, over one-third of the food produced in Canada is never eaten. Wasted food generates GHG emissions at all points along the supply chain, but the disposal phase is particularly concerning from a climate change perspective. That's because food decomposition in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas several times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Fortunately, food recovery organizations across the Columbia Basin are tackling the problem in practical, community-focused ways. Food recovery means rescuing food that would otherwise end up in the landfill and putting it to better use.

Learn more: https://basinclimatesource.ca/may-2026-newsletter



Columbia Basin Climate Source, a project of Columbia Basin Trust, is developed and managed in partnership with Selkirk Innovates. is the applied research arm of Selkirk College.

We need strategies to build food system resilience. Food hubs are one strategy, but there is a gap between theory and practice.

A new paper co-authored by Selkirk College’s Regional Innovation Chair in Rural Economic Development, Dr. Sarah-Patricia Breen, explores how food hubs emerge, unpacking the role their aspirational potential plays in food system resilience, how the precarity of the hubs themselves can stand in the way of their success, and how their persistence is itself an expression of resilience.

When trying to enhance food system resilience, why is the lead actor characterized by its precarity? Read the full Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development article for free: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2026.153.008

We gratefully acknowledge the funding support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

is the applied research division of Selkirk College.

Central Kootenay Food Policy Council
Kamloops Food Policy Council

Thank you to Ten Four Optics and Vertical Cable for supporting the Selkirk Ion-source Research Centre (SIRC) by providing networking tech for our new lab.

Learn more about the SIRC: https://selkirk.ca/research-innovation/selkirk-ion-source-research-centre

Standing together are Jonathan Doyle, Selkirk College faculty researcher and instructor, and PhD student with the SIRC, Brent Anhel, principal of TenFourOptics, and Dr. Morgan Dehnel, Selkirk Ion-Source Research Chair.

is the applied research division of Selkirk College.