Brock introduces Canada’s first sustainability science PhD

Applications are open for a new PhD in sustainability science at Brock University. The program will connect students with global climate change experts and unite diverse perspectives.

The school’s Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC), founded as one of several faculty transdisciplinary centres, aims to better accommodate the emerging discipline of sustainability science with this degree program.

“We felt that to have a critical mass or capacity for such a research centre, you really had to have a PhD program,” ESRC director Ryan Plummer said.

According to Plummer, he wants to give students “both the science and the societal skills to really make a difference.”

With the program application portal open since early October, ERSC coordinator Erin Daly said students from various disciplines and corners of the world have already expressed interest.

“That’s what’s so great about the program being transdisciplinary,” Daly said. “You can look for sustainability in how it relates to such a wide variety of fields.”

Plummer said the program will avoid being economically driven and strive to have a variety of voices and perspectives included. The program strives to bring graduate students with diverse disciplines, from psychology to earth science, to the table, he said. 

“For a program such as this where we’re engaging with pressing contemporary challenges, we’ve learned that a singular perspective is not appropriate,” he said. “That whole philosophy around sustainability science, that whole pedagogy that our program is built upon, really embraces that inclusivity that we’re talking about.”

For second-year master of sustainability science student Shannon Ruzgys, the field’s multidisciplinary nature is a major factor of her interest in the PhD program.

“When you think about sustainability and the climate crisis as a whole, you understand that you need that multidisciplinary background and you need collaboration on these massive scales for things to work,” Ruzgys said. 

“There are just so many different avenues of research happening at once that you just get exposed to this massive scale of ‘This is sustainability.’”

Interested in pursuing youth education around sustainable agriculture, Ruzgys said she is happy to be entering sustainability science at a time when the field is thriving globally.

Jessica Blythe, assistant professor for ESRC, leads the Niagara Adapts partnership, which will allow PhD students to work on climate adaptation plans with seven local municipalities.

This is just one example of how students, as part of their coursework, can gain “rich, direct, related experience that has transferability” to different contexts and settings of fighting climate change, Plummer said.

“I think that’s what’s really going to set the program apart and allow us to look at sustainability from a global perspective and also a local perspective as well,” Daly said. 

The ESRC previously introduced a master’s, bachelor’s and micro-certificate in sustainability science. But some ESRC committee members initially felt the master’s was too science-oriented, Plummer said. Creating the graduate program alone took four years.

Before, Plummer did not have any graduate students at Brock to work with and instead used grant money to schedule appointments at other schools in Ontario and also Sweden, where he is a senior research fellow with the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC).

Plummer said the SRC inspired his approach of creating the PhD program. He also co-sponsored a PhD program at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia to gain experience before executing the ESRC’s program.

“Sustainability science as an area is emerging,” Plummer said. “Trying to embrace that in Canada—that’s a bit of a leap and we’re really proud to have gotten there.”

Daly said the institutional quality assurance process for Ontario university degree programs is lengthy.

“It’s not just a situation where you approach them and say ‘We want to launch a PhD,’ and they say ‘Alright, you’re in,’” Daly said. “It’s a lot more drawn out than that.”

Jillian Booth, a second-year master of sustainability science student with an earth science background, is considering the PhD program and hoping to specialize in low-impact development.

Booth said she appreciates how Brock’s sustainability science program truly combines natural and social science.

“I don’t really think you can solve sustainability problems or really any problems without taking into account both the environment and the way that we interact with it,” she said.

Booth has collaborated during her master’s with students from public health, business and psychology and said she is always amazed by the ideas brought by people in other fields.

“There are all these disconnects in the current way that systems are working,” Booth said. “I feel like sustainability scientists will kind of be that missing connection because we do have all these different backgrounds of knowledge.”

Booth said she is excited to be part of innovative solutions in a world that is more engaged with sustainability science and inclusivity.

“Making sure that all cultures and communities are being given the same opportunities is essential,” she said. “We all live in the same area, so it doesn’t really matter who you are or where you came from. We’re all going to be dealing with the same problems.”

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Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.