From Funding to Impact: UArctic pre-session highlights lasting value of Northern and Indigenous-led collaboration

Hosted by Memorial University as a UArctic Congress and Assembly pre-session at the University of the Faroe Islands, “From Funding to Impact” brought together project leaders whose work has been supported through Global Affairs Canada funding streams administered through UArctic and Memorial University. Since 2022, these funding streams have supported approximately $1.2 million through initiatives including the Research and Education Engagement Fund, Relationship Development Fund, and north2north experiences, helping create more than 160 connections across a network of 30 funded projects between 2023 and 2025.

The session was opened with a statement from Paul Brett, Interim Deputy Provost at Memorial University’s Marine Institute, and was moderated by Stephen Heal, Senior Affiliated Researcher at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, and member of the UArctic President’s Circle. Heal opened the session by emphasizing that small grants are not the impact themselves, but rather a catalyst. As he framed it, “the pathway from funding to impact runs through relationships, trust, mobility, Indigenous and Northern leadership, and the capacity to define value locally.”

Panelists included Sylvia Moore, Assistant Professor at Memorial University’s Labrador Campus, UArctic Chair in Indigenous and Northern Education, and Co-Lead of the Verdde Thematic Network; Sandy Washburn, Adult Education Coordinator at Yukon University; Ceporah Mearns, Director of the Nunavut NEIHR at Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre and UArctic Indigenous Fellow; and Rebecca Major, Research Chair in Northern Governance at Yukon University and UArctic Indigenous Fellow. Together, they shared examples of how funding has supported Indigenous-led education, student mobility, Inuit research methodologies, Northern governance, community knowledge exchange, and long-term partnerships.

A central theme of the discussion was that the impact of funding is often most visible not in immediate outputs, but in the conditions it creates. For small Northern institutions, funding can provide the capacity to host exchanges, support travel, create learning opportunities, bring Elders and youth together, and give community partners the time and space needed to shape projects according to their own priorities.

For students and communities, the projects created impacts far beyond the classroom: Washburn shared that arts programming became a space for healing and reconnection during a period of community grief, while UArctic and Global Affairs Canada funding enabled Yukon University students to connect with Sámi partners in Finland and Norway, helping them see that the knowledge and cultural practices they carried from a small Yukon community had value far beyond Canada. “The students returned home with a stronger sense that their own knowledge and cultural practices mattered internationally — that what they carried from a small Yukon community had value and relevance far beyond our borders,” said Washburn.

For educators and institutions, Moore’s work with the Verdde Thematic Network demonstrated how professional learning can grow into broader circumpolar Indigenous education networks. Her presentation focused on three of her funded projects. Together, she noted, the projects moved from relationship-building to collaborative inquiry, to community exchange, creating networks that continue beyond the life of a single grant.

Moore emphasized the ripple effects of investing in Indigenous and Northern educators. “When educators gain confidence to teach through Indigenous languages, knowledges, and pedagogies, the impact extends far beyond the individual educator,” she reflected. “Those teachers influence hundreds of students over the course of their careers. Those students carry what they learn into their families, future workplaces, and future generations.”

She also described a powerful “ah-ha” moment that occurs when Indigenous teachers recognize they can bring their full identities into the classroom. “There is often a moment when educators recognize that they do not have to leave their Indigenous identities at the school door,” Moore noted. “Those moments can be transformative, both professionally and personally.”

Moore’s reflections reinforced one of the session’s key messages: small grants can create large and lasting effects when they support relationships, trust, and ongoing collaboration. She noted that the Global Affairs Canada funding has helped Indigenous educators, community members, and researchers work together across vast geographic distances, bridging Western academic approaches and community-based Indigenous ways of generating and sharing knowledge. “In many cases, the most important outcomes have not been reports or presentations, but the relationships, trust, and ongoing collaborations that continue long after the funding period has ended,” she wrote.

Major brought a Northern governance lens to the discussion, focusing on how funding can amplify Northern voices, strengthen decision-making, and centre Indigenous knowledge systems. Her work at Yukon University demonstrates how teaching, service, and research can overlap in ways that support Indigenous communities and governance. In her presentation, she described the Indigenous Governance capstone as a direct connection between student learning and community service, with students supporting local governance through placements in Indigenous governments, organizations, land-based camps, policy roles, language development, food sovereignty, and public service.

Mearns’ contribution highlighted the importance of centering Inuit methodologies and Inuit knowledge in graduate student pathways and community-university relationships. Her work includes research collaboration between Nunavut and Kalaallit Nunaat and Inuit Nunangat student knowledge exchange. The session framing emphasized her focus on self-determination and respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples, as well as the ways knowledge sharing can inform policy and community development in Nunavut.

The session challenged funders and institutions to rethink how impact is measured. Many outcomes, especially in community-led and Indigenous-led projects, are relational, qualitative, and long-term. Confidence, voice, trust, leadership, student aspiration, network strength, and cultural continuity may not always appear as conventional outputs, yet they are essential indicators of meaningful and lasting change.

Her Excellency Carolyn Bennett, Ambassador of Canada to the Kingdom of Denmark, closed the session with reflections on the importance of the work presented and the need to defend funding that supports long-term Arctic cooperation. Her presence carried particular significance as the Congress and Assembly took place in the Faroe Islands, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, underscoring the Arctic dimension of Canada-Denmark relations.

As UArctic members continue to build partnerships across the North, the session demonstrated that funding for small Northern institutions is not only about supporting projects. It is about strengthening capacity, creating transformative student experiences, sustaining community engagement, and building the relationships that make long-term circumpolar cooperation possible.

As Washburn reflected, “Sometimes people look at smaller Northern communities and only see limitations. But what I see are places full of knowledge, adaptability, relationships, and lived experience.” For the panelists and audience gathered in Tórshavn, that message captured the heart of the session: relationship-based funding allows Northern and Indigenous communities not only to participate, but to lead, connect, and shape learning and research around their own priorities.