The Indigenous Strategic
Initiatives Fund

In 2021, UBC established the Indigenous Strategic Initiatives (ISI) Fund with $8million to support collective, collaborative, and sustained implementation of UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan (ISP) and Commitments to Truth and Reconciliation.  

The ISI Fund provides funding for transformative and innovative projects that derive from both campuses and any unit, and are led at all levels all units with critical support from community partners. It is the first of its kind at a Canadian university and reflects UBC’s ongoing and active commitments to uplift Indigenous peoples and advance Indigenous rights.  

The ISI Fund effectively actions some core of the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), particularly Articles 3 and 18, which respectively outline Indigenous rights to self-determination and call for Indigenous decision making in matters that impact them. 

The creation of the ISI Fund, including its design, approach and guidelines were created through Indigenous-led, with engagement across both UBC campuses. The final ISI Fund guidelines were approved by the ISP Guiding Network’s Indigenous Strategic Plan Executive Advisory Committee and the Indigenous Strategic Plan Coordinating Committee before its public launch in September 2021. 

The first iteration of the fund has concluded, with the full $8.0 million now successfully allocated over four funding cycles and 103 projects.  

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