Start with the evidence
Read the published research, keep Canadian and international contexts clear, and identify the questions that still need an answer.
Research & public knowledge
Knowledge for the student movement
Better evidence.
Stronger student leadership.
Your student union experience matters. We want to understand what makes it valuable, what can make it difficult, and what helps people carry its benefits into the rest of their lives.
Research is part of the purpose of Student Union Leadership Lab. Alongside practical support, we are developing a research programme to create useful public knowledge about Canadian postsecondary student leadership: the people doing the work, the conditions around them and the organizations they help shape.
A defining chapter
Help people thrive.
Help the movement learn.
Stepping into a student union can mean representing your peers, leading a team, learning governance and finding people who care about the same things you do. It may be your first full-time job, your first board role or the beginning of a lasting connection to public service.
We want to understand those possibilities alongside the pressures: workload, financial circumstances, academic commitments, conflict and public scrutiny. The question reaches beyond how an individual copes. It includes how roles, organizations and institutions can create conditions in which people can contribute and stay well.
Our ambition is to turn careful inquiry into knowledge the whole ecosystem can use, including leaders and organizations that never buy a Lab service.
Questions worth exploring
What makes this
experience work?
We are interested in benefits, difficulties and mixed experiences. These questions guide the programme we are developing; they are not claims that participation produces a particular result.
Equity and access run through each question: who gets to participate, whose work is recognized and how different circumstances shape the experience.
- Mental health, wellbeing & sustainable leadership
- How do workload, role clarity, support, compensation and boundaries relate to wellbeing and burnout? What makes leadership meaningful and sustaining, and what changes could reduce avoidable strain?
- Learning, relationships & future opportunity
- What do leaders learn through representation, governance and teamwork? How do skills, confidence and connections carry into later work, community involvement and life after the term?
- Economic opportunity & prosperity
- How do paid, honorarium and volunteer roles affect access to leadership? What do financial pressure, time away from study or other work, and later career and earnings pathways mean for the overall experience?
- Continuity & a stronger ecosystem
- What knowledge survives a leadership transition? How can handovers, staff relationships, clear responsibilities and shared learning help successive teams build on each other’s work?
From inquiry to public knowledge
Useful beyond
one organization.
We aim to share accessible evidence notes, clearly explained findings and practical insights that help the student movement learn across terms, institutions and generations of leaders.
Develop new knowledge
Build focused questions and sound methods. Explore suitable academic and sector collaboration before proposing research involving people.
Make learning usable
Explain what a finding means, where it applies and what remains uncertain. Connect evidence to better questions, thoughtful practice and stronger continuity.
Research findings need room to challenge our assumptions, including assumptions behind the Lab’s own services. A useful result may be positive, negative, mixed or inconclusive.
Help shape the questions
A stronger understanding
starts with connection.
Student unions and associations, current and former executives, board members, continuing staff and researchers are welcome to connect about the questions this sector needs answered.
- 01
Bring a question
Tell us, in general terms, what you think the student-union community needs to understand better.
- 02
Point to useful knowledge
Suggest published studies, public resources or existing research initiatives that could inform the work.
- 03
Explore collaboration
Let us know about potential academic or sector partnerships, or your interest in the development of future research.
Connect with Matthew about research
A short message with your role, organization if relevant, and broad research interest is enough. Please leave out health histories, confidential cases and other people’s personal information.
This opens your email app; nothing is sent automatically. Contact is an expression of interest, not enrollment in a study. See our privacy notice for contact-information handling.
Careful research. Clear expectations.
How we approach the work.
What work is underway now?
The current foundation is published-literature review and public-source research, with executive wellbeing as the first focus. We have an initial literature map, source register and research questions. Career, economic opportunity and longer-term pathways are interests for future development. No Canadian participant dataset, completed longitudinal study or proven health or earnings benefit is being claimed.
Can I take part in a study?
We welcome interest in the development of this work, but participant enrollment is not open. Any future study involving people would have its own information, applicable ethics review, privacy arrangements and voluntary consent process before recruitment or collection begins. Contacting the Lab does not commit you to participate, authorize later research use of your message or subscribe you to marketing. Buying a service or membership would not be a condition of research participation.
Is this university-affiliated research?
This is an independently developing programme led by Matthew Dunlop. No university affiliation or research-ethics approval is currently claimed. We are interested in suitable academic collaboration and will identify the partners and review arrangements for any future study.
How will you handle evidence about mental health and opportunity?
We distinguish wellbeing, distress and burnout, and consider organizational conditions alongside individual experience. We also distinguish an association from a causal effect: a link between leadership and a later outcome would not, by itself, show that leadership caused it. Public organizational records cannot establish a person’s private health or experience. This work does not provide mental-health assessment or treatment.
Will research become sales material or public stories?
Findings should be reported on their evidence. Research participation, service feedback and public storytelling have separate purposes and permissions. Taking part in research would not make someone a sales lead or give permission to publish their name, story or quotation.
A starting point in the literature
Officer Wellbeing Research — NUS Charity / Think Positive, 2023 →
This UK sector report describes rewards and pressures of elected office, based on a 2022 survey and focus groups. It is a useful starting point for questions, not a Canadian estimate or evidence that leadership caused an outcome. Future public evidence notes will identify their sources, methods and limits.