On May 6th, CBRCanada will be hosting a National Gathering and Awards Gala. This online event is an important placeholder for C2UExpo as we continue to support and keep each other safe until we hopefully can gather in person at C2UExpo in 2022. This Gala event will have two main parts: the discussion panel and the CBRCanada’s award celebration. First, we will be hearing from an exceptional group of panelists (see below for the names) about the future of community-based research in Canada. The discussion will be facilitated by Bob Rosehart.
The importance of the panel notwithstanding, this gala is a groundbreaking event as it is the first time CBRCanada will be conferring two new national awards: The Emerging Community Based Researcher and the Excellence in Community-Campus Research Partnership. These awards are meant to recognize and celebrate the growing field of community-based research in Canada by drawing attention to several amazing people who have been leading the way through their exceptional work. Both awards are sponsored by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, thank you SSHRC!
Given this is the first ever CBR Canada awards event we were not sure what to expect in terms of the number of nominations we would receive post call. Well, weren’t we pleasantly surprised! We received 32 strong nominations across the country. It was a near impossible process to identify only one winner for each category given the exceptionally high quality of all the submissions. At CBRCanada this gave us solid evidence for something we have known anecdotally for some time: community-based research is alive and well-established in Canada and the quality of our collective work is exceptional and growing. Indeed, it is long overdue that we take the time to celebrate this work and at CBRCanada we take seriously the responsibly to convene this space.
The names of the nominated researchers and short description of the nominated research partnerships are provided in this newsletter (page?). All these persons and projects are simply remarkable, and we hope you take the time to learn more about each of these important contributions to community-based research in Canada. Two of the nominated research partnerships are featured in this issue (page ?).
And from the 32 amazing applications, the following two winners were identified: Maryam Khan from Wilfrid Laurier University, a community-based researcher who works to improve mental health and lives of LGBTQ+ individuals, and Parent Advocacy Project Team let by Rebecca Haines-Saah from University of Calgary and Petra Schulz, the co-founder of Moms Stop the Harm, a network of Canadian families impacted by substance-use related harms and deaths. We would like to congratulate the winners and we look forward to celebrating their work at the National Gala.
And last but certainly not least, on May 6th we will also celebrate Budd Hall from the University of Victoria who will receive the Community Based Research Leadership Award. This award is granted by the CBRCanada Board of Directors to recognize outstanding leadership to the Canadian community-based research field and to the development of the CBRCanada network. Budd Hall is a very keen strategic mind which has helped grow CBRCanada since he was the co-founding member in 2008.
We hope you can attend the C2UExpo Mini-Gathering and Awards Gala on May 6th . We all may feel a little zoomed out, but please take the time to join and celebrate our fantastic award winners, our nominees, and to hear from our stellar panel. And if this is not enough encouragement, a little bird told us that Budd might even share one of his poems!
- Joanna and Steve
Co-Chairs of CBRCanada Board of Directors