Ken Coates

Biography

Ken Coates is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation in the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. He is also the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Senior Policy Fellow in Aboriginal and Northern Canadian Issues. He has served at universities across Canada (UNBC, UNB and Waterloo) and at the University of Waikato (New Zealand), an institution known internationally for its work on Indigenous affairs. He has also worked as a consultant for Indigenous groups and governments in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia as well as for the United Nations, companies, and think tanks. Ken has also served as the past president of the Japan Studies Association of Canada, and in November was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada Ken recently published a book called From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation with Greg Poelzer. He has previously published on such topics as Arctic sovereignty, Aboriginal rights in the Maritimes, northern treaty and land claims processes, regional economic development, and government strategies for working with Indigenous peoples in Canada. His book, A Global History of Indigenous Peoples; Struggle and Survival, offered a world history perspective on the issues facing Indigenous communities and governments. He was co-author of the Donner Prize winner for the best book on public policy in Canada, Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North, and was short-listed for the same award for his earlier work, The Marshall Decision and Aboriginal Rights in the Maritimes. Ken contributes regularly, through newspaper pieces and radio and television interviews, on contemporary discussions on northern, Indigenous, and technology-related issues.

Research Interest

Regional innovation, University education and higher education generally, Aboriginal rights and land claims, Science and technology policy, Japan and Canada-Asia relations, Northern governance and development, and circumpolar affairs