ICE Accomplishments & History

Pan Canadian Resource Network ICE Project

Insufficient research capacity can inhibit evidence based public health. The Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement projects aim to build research capacity, defined as a community’s ability to produce research that adequately informs practice, policy, and future research in a timely, practical manner. A key component is that individuals and teams within the community must mutually engage around common, collectively negotiated goals to address specific practices, policies or programs of research.

The Pan-Canadian Resource Network ICE project has developed an organizing framework and set of activities built around strategic recruitment, productivity tools, and procedures for enhancing social capital. Actions are intended to facilitate better alignment between research and the priorities of policies developers and service providers, enhance the external validity of the work performed, and reduce the time required to inform policy and practice.

Our initial team included 17 scientists from 7 institutions (UBC, UNB, UPEI, McMaster, UW, Cancer Care Ontario, U of A), in 5 provinces. We are keen to recruit new participants from multiple disciplines, sectors (academic, public, non-profit), and regions in Canada. We are particularly interested in building research capacity in disciplines that have not traditionally been involved in tobacco control research (e.g., computer science, political science, geography, accounting, population genetics, etc.). We are also keen to support the further development of research capacity for tobacco control in Atlantic Canada and the Prairie Provinces.

Since the formation of the ICE project teams, our community has grown to include over 90 online affiliates from across all Canadian provinces, representing research, policy and practice.

The ICE project engages in three types of activities to build research capacity and impact in Canada: strategic recruitment and mentoring of researchers and decision makers from across Canada; the development of new tools and knowledge; and the development of new, dynamic, collaborative networks or “communities of practice” whose members focus on improving specific practices, policies and research issues of mutual concern to network members.

During the first two years of funding the team has undertaken activities related to each of these objectives. Particular focus has been on acquiring the necessary human resources and technical infrastructure that will allow us to meet the terms of the project. Having the necessary people, protocols and technical support tools in place will enable us to accelerate our rate of function and effect. Moreover, the challenges we have been dealing with are an important part of the capacity building process. Documenting these challenges, and our solutions, in itself is an important product worthy of dissemination to others interested in research capacity enhancement.

The second year of our Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement project focused on building infrastructure and system supports for our mission. Our investigator team has met twice over the past year and plans to meet at least twice a year for the remainder of our funding period to evaluate our activities and make sure we are heading in the right direction.

We have undertaken activities related to each of our project objectives. Particular focus has been on building the tangible and social infrastructure that is at the foundation of our model for building research capacity in Canadian tobacco control. As expected, this has been a deliberate and time consuming process.

While our project objectives have not changed we have altered the language and framework we are using to describe our project. We hope that these changes will enable our partners to more clearly and succinctly describe our project to stakeholders, help connect the project to some broader literatures (e.g., social capital), and enhance the ability to evaluate our impact.

Our project has started to develop considerable momentum. We have built the foundation of our program and are developing and utilizing more activities that will be used in the future. We are eagerly anticipating Year Three of the ICE program and are excited for the ongoing and new activities that will take place in this time. We remain grateful for the continuing support of the Canadian Tobacco Control Research Initiative and its partners.

Future plans include (i) the creation of stable, productive communities of practice; (ii) the creation of tools that will more proactively put research products into the hands of the policy and practice community; (iii) further development of data collection systems, (iv) the enhancement of a roster of researchers willing to provide consultations to decision makers on request; (v) proactive creation of original briefs for decision makers to “push” current policies and practices in tobacco control; and, (vi) ideas that will lead to better integration of tobacco control with other efforts to prevent and reduce the burden of chronic diseases in Canada.

If you are interested in contributing to the Pan-Canadian Resource Network, or would like assistance from one of our programs, please contact:

Paul McDonald (Principal Investigator); pwmcdona@healthy.uwaterloo.ca

Mari Alice Jolin (Project Coordinator); majolin@healthy.uwaterloo.ca