Queen Elizabeth Scholarships Program To Support NIC’s International Climate Project

North Island College students will have greater international education opportunities while also tackling climate change.

The college is one of several post-secondary institutions across Canada to be funded through a program to increase opportunities for students to study abroad.

It has been announced as a recipient for the 2025 Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships program for work that will support climate resiliency.

NIC is among the 22 universities and colleges in Canada that will receive program funding.

In all, the Queen Elizabeth Scholarships program provides $6.2 million to support work on adaptation, response and resilience in the face of a changing climate around the world.

The QES program is led by the Rideau Hall Foundation in collaboration with Universities Canada. It is a study abroad scholarship program, often geared toward longer study experiences but is applicable to project-based work as well.

NIC has secured $300,000 over the next three years.

The funding will support NIC’s program, Indigenizing the Climate Change Response: Fostering Inter-Cultural & Inter-Disciplinary Resiliency Through Study Abroad in Mexico and New Zealand.

Established in 2012, this QES funding has been awarded to more than 2,600 scholars from Canada and around the world, and with the latest round, the program has now supported 134 international projects in more than 80 countries.

In recent years, NIC had study abroad funding through a program called the Global Skills Opportunity, which was supported by Employment and Skills Development Canada but expires at the end of March.

The new program will help replace the Global Skills Opportunity program, which has provided scholarships to 133 NIC students, 81 of whom were Indigenous.

For details, visit North Island College.