There are 2000 Canada Research Chairs (CRC) funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and this is the first CRC (www.crcresearch.org) held by Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. It is held by Dr. Ann Dale, Trudeau Fellow (2004), chair of the Canadian Consortium for Sustainable Development Resarch (www.ccsdr.crcresearch.org.index-ht.htm). Dr. Dale is a widely published author in her field of sustainable development and is a recipient of an outstanding research contribution award to public policy for her book, At the edge: sustainable development in the 21st century. Her research program studies both place-based and virtual communities, exploring the dynamic interactions between place, limits, scale and diversity in communities across Canada. Dr. Dale is also know for her leadership in novel research dissemination and on-line real-time dialogues (www.e-Dialogues.ca). Further research is now being conducted on the relationships between agency, social capital and sustainable community development, and her research team has developed a survey uniquely designed for Canadian communities exploring these relationships (www.survey.crcresearch.org/index.php?sid=2).