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Graduate Student and Undergraduate Student Research Assistantships

The project offers numerous programs to support student research and training:

  • graduate and undergraduate research assistantships to support student projects contributing to our overall research program
  • assistantships for administrative positions related to research tools: electronic journal, website, policy papers, outreach, books, colloquia, summer institutes
  • an international exchange fund, which supports students wanting to work with co-investigators in affiliated institutions, or to undertake periods of fieldwork in other national contexts
  • a summer institute bringing together graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and researchers to collaborate closely with leading scholars and practitioners in the field, exchange ideas, engage in vital and timely problem-driven research issues, and disseminate their work through public colloquium presentations with opportunities for publication
  • opportunities to participate in a wide variety of research in-progress seminars and annual colloquia, and publication of essays in both popular and peer-reviewed venues

Becoming a Student Researcher

Student researchers must be registered in or be admitted to an undergraduate or a graduate program in one of the three core institutions affiliated with our project: University of Guelph, McGill University, and University of British Columbia. The supervisor for the URA or GRA position must be a research team member already associated with the project and may be assigned during the recruitment process. Annual Calls for Applications are distributed by the host institutions that detail application processes and requirements. For students at the graduate level, their research must normally relate to at least one of the seven research areas associated with the project: 1) Improvisation, Law, and Justice, 2) Improvisation and Pedagogy, 3) Improvisation and Social Policy, 4) Improvisation and Transcultural Understanding, 5) Improvisation, Gender, and the Body, 6) Improvisation, Text, and Media, 7) Improvisation and Social Aesthetics. For students at our affiliated core institutions who are not already working with research team members, please contact our Project Manager (see below) for inquiries about available present and future student research opportunities.

Current Call for Applications

The deadline has passed for the most recent Call for Applications and no new applications are being accepted. Please check back to this page regularly or watch for updates in our News section.

Past Calls for Applications

2013-14 GRA and URA Call for Applications(Guelph)

2011-12 GRA and URA Call for Applications(Guelph)

For more information please contact the Project Manager at: improv@uoguelph.ca or (519) 824-4120 x53885

...partly because I know that’s the only way that we could solve a creative problem [using improvisation with children ranging in abilities] and what doesn’t work is trying to impose a template on the students who are not able to respond to that template.

– Pauline Oliveros (in working with Abilities First)