I spent the week of February 8th on the SFU 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’s 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’s 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—and, for the most part, resolved—over the course of the project. At the same time, the climate of research at SFU has evolved, with a university-wide focus on “engagement” and Aboriginal research, and efforts to interpret Canada’s Tri-Council Ethics Policy into practice.
There’s 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—students, community members, university-based researchers, and university research administrators. More than one person felt that the project had indeed made positive differences in the “culture of research” and the way “collaboration” is defined, not only at SFU and other universities, but perhaps even at Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (IPinCH’s 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’ with one of the many applications submitted to SSHRC’s MCRI program (Julie Hollowell, Feb. 2006, used with permission).
