A new Durham College belonging project will bring local organizations, residents and student researchers together to examine why community support can be difficult to access and how services could work more effectively together.
The college announced on November 6 that its Social Impact Hub is partnering with Community Development Council Durham, known as CDCD, on a three-year applied research initiative. The work will address challenges including housing affordability, food insecurity, social isolation and hate.
Funding comes through a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada College and Community Social Innovation Fund grant. The announcement does not state a dollar value, so the project should not be confused with other, separately announced college research grants.
Research built around belonging
The initiative’s full name is The Future of Belonging – Reassembling Social Infrastructure for Inclusive Innovation in Durham Region. It draws on a Future of Belonging model developed by Georgian College, which will serve as a strategic advisor.
Rather than focusing on a single service in isolation, the partners plan to study how relationships, institutions, resources and lived experience affect belonging and access to help. Their stated goal is more coordinated responses that make community resources easier for people to reach.
The announcement also identifies decision-making as part of the research. The partnership will examine how community decisions are made, whose knowledge shapes them and how organizations can align their efforts around priorities they share.
Residents and students will help test ideas
Community Innovation Labs are planned as a way for residents and students to identify shared challenges, develop ideas together and test possible approaches. The college has not provided public registration dates or a lab schedule in this announcement.
Durham College will contribute research capacity as well as student learning opportunities. Students will take part as paid research assistants and placement students, according to Colleen McKay, the Social Impact Hub’s manager of grants and special projects.
McKay described hands-on work in community-based research, participatory design, systems mapping and equity-informed practice. Those activities connect student learning with practical questions facing community organizations, rather than treating the project solely as classroom study.
CDCD’s role is to connect the research with local social planning priorities, relationships in the community and the needs of service providers. Georgian College will advise on adapting its framework to the Durham collaboration.
A partnership, not a new intake service
The Durham College belonging project is an announced research partnership. The release does not launch a new housing benefit, food programme or emergency support intake, and it does not promise an immediate change to eligibility for existing services.
For Durham residents, the local significance is the opportunity for lived experience and community knowledge to inform how organizations understand gaps and coordinate support. The work will test ideas with participants; outcomes have not yet been established.
The announcement presents the three-year effort as a way to build stronger connections between community members, students and organizations. Further project notices will be needed for participation arrangements and research results.
Source
Durham College: Social Impact Hub grant announcement, November 6, 2026
Featured image: original conceptual editorial illustration, not a photograph of a project meeting or campus.
