In 2019, UNBC's research income increased by 42.5 per cent, the largest increase of any university in the undergraduate tier in the latest edition of Canada's Top 50 Research Universities. UNBC also saw its overall ranking increase and moved up places in two categories related to research intensity.

UNBC is the host institution for the Centre for Technology Adoption for Aging in the North, a new AGE-WELL National Innovation Hub. Through partnerships with technology developers, researchers, policy makers, health-care providers, community groups and older adults themselves, CTAAN tests, pilots, implements and promotes new and existing technology solutions to help older adults live independently.

Conservation Science and Practice Professor Dr. Pamela Wright received the 2020 Mitacs Award for Outstanding Leadership – Professor for her exemplary record of developing collaborations with industry and other partners, providing valuable research and training experiences to interns and initiating research projects with significant outcomes through Mitacs funding.

River otters have been eating juvenile sturgeon released from a Vanderhoof hatchery. By visiting dozens of otter latrine sites along the Nechako River, UNBC graduate student Cale Babey has begun to quantify the extent of the predation.

A new digital tool developed by UNBC professors in collaboration with Spinal Cord Injury BC’s Access BC team will support work to enhance accessibility and create more barrier-free outdoor destinations.

Metal-rich sediment is mixed into the water column each spring and fall

Christiana Onabola, a UNBC Health Sciences PhD student, has earned a federally-funded Vanier Scholarship for her research that focuses on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how they are relevant to local populations and communities along the Nechako Watershed in British Columbia and Niger Delta in Nigeria.