University of British Columbia Okanagan

The University of British Columbia Okanagan (also known as UBC Okanagan or UBCO) is a campus of the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.

This campus is the research and innovation hub in the province's southern interior, in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley and home to over 11,913 undergraduate and graduate students. UBC Okanagan has 62 undergraduate programs and 19 graduate programs.

The current site of UBC Okanagan was initially used by Okanagan University College (OUC), which was founded in 1989 (in principle) as a part of a plan by the government to improve access to post-secondary education in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. Initially, degrees were awarded in partnership with other universities, but by 1995, the university college began granting degrees in its name. In the late 1990s, OUC started lobbying efforts to gain full university status.

In December 2002, the British Columbia Progress Board submitted a report to the provincial government, recognizing the need to expand post-secondary education in the Okanagan. The board, chaired by the University of British Columbia president Martha Piper, recommended that the province extend "the mandate of an existing provincial University to Kelowna".

In March 2004, British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell and UBC president Martha Piper held a press conference, announcing that OUC would be dissolved. OUC's university operations would be consolidated at its North Kelowna Campus and would come under the University of British Columbia. The other programs and campuses of OUC would form a new community college, which would later take on the name Okanagan College. The OUC board was reportedly not invited to the press conference. It had not been told in advance of the imminent demise of the OUC Board and removal or the termination of the majority of the OUC board members.

UBC Okanagan offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate (Ph.D. & Masters) programs. There are more than 50 undergraduate programs in Arts, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Human Kinetics, Management, Media, Medicine, Nursing, and Sciences. The university also offers graduate programs in the following areas: Biology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Sciences, Education, Engineering, English, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, Fine Arts, Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies, Management, Mathematics, Medical Physics, Nursing, Psychology, and Social Work.

Since its establishment in 2005, the research capability and researcher profiles have increased rapidly. Annual tri-council funding increased from $1.1M to $5.9M between 2005 and 2015. The total research funding reached $14.7M/year, with 714 projects in 2015. The Survive and Thrive Applied Research (STAR) initiative projects include control software for unmanned aerial vehicles. STAR creates a bridge between UBC Okanagan and industry, specializing in technologies for human protection and performance in extreme, remote, or rural conditions. UBCO has 15 research centres and 505 faculty members.

The UBC Okanagan campus is situated on a hill between Glenmore and Ellison in Kelowna. Street names are signed in English and Nsyilxcən language. The campus consists of Upper Campus, Lower Campus, Innovation Precinct, and Endowment Lands.