Queen’s University is building a two-story 4,500-square-foot Environmental Science Research and Teaching Centre at the Queen's University Biological Station (QUBS), located on Lake Opinicon, about an hour’s drive northeast of the university’s main campus in Kingston.

“This capital investment will enhance capacity at QUBS, augmenting our research facilities, enriching teaching in ecology and conservation, and burnishing our reputation,” says Stephen Lougheed, Director, Queen’s University Biological Station. “It will also put QUBS on a more financially sustainable footing in the long term.

“We are building a collaborative, multi-disciplinary, world-class research facility with three modern on-site labs and a Geographic Information System (GIS) facility, plus meeting and learning spaces that will allow QUBS to host researchers in aquatic sciences, molecular ecology, and other disciplines and markedly increase usership of station.”

The facilities will operate year-round, heated and cooled using geothermal energy. Indoor experimental aquatic and molecular laboratory facilities will allow QUBS to host a broader array of research and expand course offerings in ecology, evolution, conservation, geography, molecular biology, and environmental science. 

The research centre will also facilitate the development of new approaches for monitoring aquatic and terrestrial environments, for example providing a venue for employing environmental DNA tools for invasive species detection, species-at-risk management, ecosystem assessment, as well as disease surveillance. 

The investment comes at a time when research is urgently needed to assess and mitigate environmental degradation using Western and Indigenous Knowledge, to quantify impacts of multiple stressors on freshwater ecosystems, and to help the university, province and country to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) associated with climate change and the environment.

Funding for the project will come from the university’s capital reserves with a portion through donor funds. This investment is part of a funding agreement with the Canada Foundation for Innovation – Innovation Fund (CFI-IF) and the Government of Ontario that will deliver state of the art research equipment to Queen’s and its research partners, including the River Institute.

The project is expected to be complete and ready to open in the spring of 2026.

The Queen’s University Biological Station (QUBS) has been in operation for almost 80 years and is a leading Canadian scientific field stations.