Laura Fraser receives Isobel and Len Findlay Travel Award 2026

The Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives is delighted to announce Laura Fraser has been awarded the 2nd annual Isobel and Len Findlay Travel Award (value: $1,000).

Laura is finishing her Master of Public Policy in the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy this year under Dr. Alaz Munzur, focusing on the Canadian-United Kingdom timber trade and the development of Canadian forestry management.

Laura’s research examines how Canadian timber extraction has affected governmental institutions and policy development, particularly policies that favour an export-oriented economic model over community-based governance. In particular, she examines how resource extraction through the timber trade has shaped and affected Canadian institutions and Indigenous communities through economic and social models that prioritize land and resources. Through this analysis, she explores how institutions and other social economy enterprises work as alternatives to these extractive models and institutions, creating a foundation for examining how community-based governance can be transformative and support resource management.

The annual Isobel and Len Findlay Award provides financial travel support to knowledge mobilization activities of a student who demonstrates a commitment to exploring the transformative potential of democratically governed co-operatives and other social economy enterprises. This Award will support Laura in sharing her research with a wider academic community through presentations at the Canadian Network for Economic History and Canadian Economic Association, Atlantic Canadian Studies conferences.

Laura is starting her PhD at JSGS in the fall, also under Dr. Munzur, which will expand this analysis to other Canadian resource industries. In her free time, Laura enjoys writing articles about English literature and baking bread.

Congratulations, Laura!

This Award is made possible through a generous $30,000 endowment by Professor Emerita and longtime CCSC Research Fellow Isobel Findlay, in honour of Len Findlay, her husband and lifetime collaborator, Professor Emeritus, and great friend of the Centre. Awarded annually, this is an opportunity for graduate students to have the opportunities to present their work, network, and gain exposure to other people and ideas that Isobel and Len enjoyed throughout their careers.

Isobel chose the CCSC as the Award’s home because, as she said in a USask interview when the endowment was announced,  “we were both associated—and I am still—with the CCSC. That was the one place where we learned so much and worked together.” Isobel added, “co-ops are about economic democracy and social democracy. They are about inclusion, about people having decision-making power. The power isn’t taken away elsewhere. The profits don’t go elsewhere. They stay in the community and support the community. That’s an important dimension of co-ops.”