Networking for innovation at SFU Health Research Day 2016

By Justin Wong

Health researchers across different disciplines gathered at the fourth biennial SFU Health Research Day for an interactive day aimed at building collaborations across the university as they discussed solutions to contemporary health issues.

This year’s Research Day took place on May 4, 2016 and was organized by representatives from seven SFU Faculties, VP Research and SFU Library, is unique from previous years where researchers presented their proposals regarding their resolutions to health concerns in front of an audience.

Instead, researchers from various disciplines broke into groups to have a in-depth dialogue on contemporary health issues ranging from applications and challenges of big data for health research to climate change, health and disease.

The event’s emphasis on dialogue encouraged each group to collaboratively develop a proposal to have their ideas for health solutions funded by a $5,000 grant through VP Research.

At one of the dialogue tables, participants developed an idea for a web-based application, “Tinder for Big Data Research Scientists,” to help researchers identify collaborators across disciplines. Another group of researchers put forth a proposal to mine data collected from mobile technologies such as smart phones and wearables to identify patterns that can help detect, predict, prevent and manage mental illness.

"The participants including faculty members, graduate students, and our partners from Fraser Health, clearly brought their enthusiasm to this event,” says Joy Johnson, vice-president of research at SFU. “They were dedicated to engaging with each other to find solutions to the health problems that are plaguing our communities today."

Johnson says that the open format was successful in attracting SFU’s health research community to collaborate in a unique way and discuss ideas that will one-day result in brilliant innovations.

SFU Health Research Day 2016 was supported by the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the following SFU sponsors:

• Beedie School of Business
• Faculty of Applied Sciences
• Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
• Faculty of Communications, Arts and Technology
• Faculty of Education
• Faculty of Environment
• Faculty of Health Sciences
• Faculty of Science
• Office of the Vice President, Academic
• Office of the Vice President, Research
• SFU Graduate Studies
• SFU Library