In 2022, CIET/PRAM continued promoting the transformative engagement of researchers with decision-makers, healthcare providers, patients and communities in the co-production and use of knowledge to improve health and healthcare.  Our team obtained more than $850,000 in additional funding for participatory research in Nigeria, Mexico, and Colombia. This funding supplements our current projects and partnerships in Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Nigeria, and Uganda. We continued to provide training on advanced participatory research methods for Master’s and doctoral students (FEMD 603, 604, 615, and 702) and community members. We expanded and disseminated the use of techniques that enable diverse voices to contribute to knowledge creation. We offered an international course for the Society for Medical Decision Making and showcased our work at international conferences (ten oral and four poster presentations). In 2022, our unit welcomed a Ph.D. and a Master’s student (awarded with Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s program), totaling five Ph.D. students and one postdoctoral fellow. We’ve had a great time working with five medical student interns on our projects over the summer.

CIET/PRAM’s monthly newsletter, which was launched in 2022, has been reaching nearly 1,000 recipients worldwide. We have also provided online tools to disseminate our developments on the use of fuzzy cognitive mapping in participatory research, which other research groups at McGill and beyond have adopted.

Our ongoing projects in Nunavik have seen exciting developments with the engagement of senior Inuit leadership, led by Ms. Minnie Grey, and multiple community members who participated in fuzzy cognitive mapping sessions across the Ungava and Hudson bays. We also continued to support the Quebec Indigenous Mentorship Network Program (Teionkwaienawa:kon) during its final year to extend its important contributions towards positioning Indigenous perspectives in the universities of Quebec.

Participatory research and management involve partnerships with people affected by research issues and those who use research results. It applies participatory sciences to create and to translate knowledge for action or change in health practice or policy, or individual, community or population health. 

Led by Professor Neil Andersson, PRAM promotes scholarship on participatory research and management; offers expertise and training in participatory research; and increases patient and community engagement in the management of health care. In 2020 PRAM included 2 Master’s students, 9 Ph.D. and 2 postdoctoral fellows, two full professors, one assistant professor, and one professor of practice. The team delivered graduate courses on participatory research and management, knowledge translation, and indigenous health (FMED603, FMED604, FMED702, FMED615, FMED506, and FMED611). Prof Andersson is a co-director of the McGill Institute of Human Development and Wellbeing, responsible for the research axis on Participation across the Life-course.