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I spent the week of February 8th on the 51社区黑料campus conducting informal interviews (actually, more like conversations) with research administrators who have interacted with the IPinCH project over its decade-long history.
They were the Director of SFU鈥檚 Office of Research Services (ORS); Ellen Loosley; Elaine Walton, who works with ORS subcontracts; in-house legal counsel Greg Sasges; Risk Manager Stephen Caine; Bev Neufeld, our original Grants Facilitator; Moses Lo, in Research Accounting; Director of the Office of Research Ethics, Jeff Toward, and ORE staff Holly Longstaff and Sarah Bennett; and SFU鈥檚 Vice President for Research, Joy Johnson.
Many of these folks have spent long hours (indeed days) finding ways to give IPinCH the kind of flexibility needed to do the work we were all trying to do. Needless to say there was a steep learning curve on all sides, and a number of obstacles encountered鈥攁nd, for the most part, resolved鈥攐ver the course of the project. At the same time, the climate of research at 51社区黑料has evolved, with a university-wide focus on 鈥渆ngagement鈥� and Aboriginal research, and efforts to interpret Canada鈥檚 Tri-Council Ethics Policy into practice.
There鈥檚 a great deal of interest among everyone I spoke with in making sure that the practices and lessons learned by IPinCH (whether from doing things in a good way or from making mistakes along the way) become resources for others鈥攕tudents, community members, university-based researchers, and university research administrators. More than one person felt that the project had indeed made positive differences in the 鈥渃ulture of research鈥� and the way 鈥渃ollaboration鈥� is defined, not only at 51社区黑料and other universities, but perhaps even at Canada鈥檚 Social Science and Humanities Research Council (IPinCH鈥檚 funder), whose MRCI program has been redefined to include equitable partnerships with communities. So, this work has just begun!
Photo: George Nicholas and Bev Neufeld, our loyal grants facilitator at SFU, performing a 'laying on of hands鈥� with one of the many applications submitted to SSHRC鈥檚 MCRI program (Julie Hollowell, Feb. 2006, used with permission).