Agriculture & Climate
Crop risks, drought, land use, and environmental change.
IdeaLab Research
Spatial
An interdisciplinary space for connecting perspectives, knowledge, methods, and places.
Spatial at IdeaLab Research brings different disciplines and ways of knowing together to explore relationships between people, places, and the challenges they face. Questions can lead to research, shared discovery, or practical applications.
An open environment
Many ways to explore a question
Begin with a question, an idea, a dataset, or a practical need. Explore it through different perspectives and methods, develop new understanding, and connect with others where useful. The aim is not to prescribe one pathway, but to create opportunities for shared discovery and practical development.
Perspectives & Thinking
Spatial questions can be explored through individual disciplines, multidisciplinary collaboration, interdisciplinary inquiry, or transdisciplinary work involving knowledge beyond academic boundaries. No single approach is required; the question helps shape the approach.
Questions & Challenges
Begin with something worth understanding: where services are needed, how places are changing, who can access an opportunity, or how environmental and social systems interact. Questions can develop into research, shared discussion, or practical work.
Methods, Data & Evidence
Approaches may include GIS, remote sensing, spatial statistics, quantitative and qualitative methods, mapping, modelling, visualization, and the integration of different forms of evidence. Methods should fit the question, not dictate it.
Development & Applications
Ideas and findings can lead to web maps, dashboards, datasets, decision-support tools, research applications, or other practical responses. Some work produces new knowledge; other work develops something people can use.
IdeaLab Spatial Hub
The Spatial Hub brings together spatial resources, research methods, and practical applications. Through GeoHub, members can explore maps, datasets, dashboards, and geospatial tools as these resources become available.
Possible directions
Where Spatial ideas can lead
Spatial thinking can contribute to many fields and challenges. These examples illustrate possible directions, not a list of completed projects.
Health & Accessibility
Access to care, service gaps, and facility planning.
Energy & Environment
Solar potential, site suitability, and resource planning.
Cities & Communities
Infrastructure, neighbourhoods, and spatial inequality.
Data & Digital Applications
Maps, dashboards, datasets, and reusable tools.
Connected Questions
Bringing perspectives and evidence together to understand complex challenges.
Across the ecosystem
Connected with Insight
Questions explored through Insight may lead to spatial analysis, maps, or applications. Spatial findings and datasets can also raise new questions. Across IdeaLab Research, ideas and evidence can connect and develop in different directions.
Explore Insight →Many approaches. Connected possibilities.