Environmental Justice Research Alliance: Building climate justice by sharing resources

March 2025

Jen Gobby was a graduate student writing a thesis on social movements and climate in 2019 when she came to understand that frontline climate activists had unmet research needs and that academics like her were uniquely positioned to provide research support. Three years later, she co-founded Environmental Justice Research Alliance (EJRA).

“Most of the research capacity in this country [exists] in companies, governments, and universities … and that allows them to push their own agendas, which often promote extractive, polluting corporate interests at the expense of communities,” says Gobby, who teaches at University of Victoria and McGill University in Montreal. She frequently writes and speaks about climate justice and strengthening social movements through allyship and solidarity. “At the EJRA, we’re trying to even that playing field.”

The Montréal-based organization supports the research efforts of Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities and movements on the frontlines of climate change and environmental discrimination. Over the past two years, EJRA has collaborated on about 60 projects. (The Catherine Donnelly Foundation has provided two grants to EJRA to help build their capacity.)

Communities approach EJRA with research requests and collaborate with coordinators to determine the best way to meet their needs. The Alliance then matches them with experts from its extensive network of university and college volunteers, which includes engineers, natural scientists, social scientists, policy analysts, and more. If communities prefer to lead their own research, EJRA provides funding to cover their time and expenses.

As of early 2025, the Alliance was providing research and academic assistance to about a dozen projects. These include a Yukon Indigenous community seeking policy support on environmental contamination from a nearby mine, a Mohawk reserve in Quebec conducting water, air, and soil testing for pollution from a local industry as well as BC Indigenous Nations seeking information about companies proposing oil and gas pipelines.

Academic research in Indigenous and racialized communities has historically been extractive, colonial, and often harmful. EJRA is committed to doing things differently. The communities and movements retain full control over the research process, from methodology to data sharing.

“It is their intellectual property and it’s fundamental to our model and to the spirit of reconciliation and decolonization that only the movements or communities themselves make the decisions,” notes Gobby. “One of the things we say during orientation [for new volunteers] is the expertise that matters in these projects is the lived experience of the frontline folks.”

A typical EJRA project might bring together a university professor from the University of Victoria, a graduate student from McGill, a land defender from BC, and an EJRA research coordinator. “All these people are doing amazing work together, teaching each other and learning from each other,” says Gobby. “So, every project is a kind of magical meeting of the minds … and people keep in touch and develop offshoot projects.”

The Resistance Resilience Network, which provides free mental health care for Indigenous activists and land defenders, emerged from an EJRA assessment of the challenges climate justice activists face, while the Anishinabe Moose Committee, a research project connecting youth with Elders for land-based learning, was developed through an EJRA collaboration in Western Quebec.

When Gobby looks to the future, she wonders if the model could expand beyond research to provide additional forms of support such as fundraising, legal assistance, and administrative aid, to communities fighting for environmental and climate justice.

“I feel really proud of this model, and I think it could be something other people take inspiration from,” says Gobby. “A lot of the most powerful work I see going on around the country is led by Indigenous land defenders and other marginalized communities that are underfunded and underserved. So, models like this that get the support and resources to the folks who are really aiming to transform systems, could really shift things.”

To learn more about Environmental Justice Research Alliance visit their website here.