Research and Society

Advancing socially accountable biomedical research through education, engagement, and innovation.

Biomedical research does not exist in isolation. Our work explores how research, education, and community engagement can advance health and innovation while responding to the needs and priorities of society. We are interested in how scientists are trained, how research serves communities, and how diverse perspectives can strengthen discovery and innovation.

Through scholarship in graduate education, social accountability, science communication, and community-engaged research, we seek to build a more responsive, inclusive, and impactful biomedical research ecosystem.

Social Accountability in Biomedical Research

Research has the potential to improve lives, but only when it remains connected to the needs of patients, communities, and society. Our work examines how principles of social accountability can be extended beyond health professions education into biomedical and translational research.

Key areas include:

Social accountability in graduate education
Community-responsive research
Biomedical professionalism and professional identity
Research culture and responsibility
Partnerships between researchers and society

Featured publication

Extending Social Accountability Mandates to Biomedical Research in Canadian Faculties of Medicine (2024)

Graduate Education and Research Training

Tomorrow's scientific discoveries depend on how we train today's researchers. We investigate innovative approaches to graduate education that foster professionalism, leadership, communication, collaboration, and responsible conduct of research.

Key areas include:

Graduate and postdoctoral education
Professional skills development
Mentorship and supervision
Science communication
Leadership development
Training the next generation of biomedical researchers

Examples

Graduate professionalism curriculum
Science communication initiatives
Supervisor development programs
Educational innovation within medicine and health sciences

Community Engagement, Inclusion, and Research Impact

Scientific research is strengthened when diverse voices are included in the research process. We explore approaches that connect researchers, learners, patients, and communities to ensure that research is meaningful, relevant, and accessible.

Key areas include:

Community-engaged scholarship
Knowledge mobilization
Patient and public engagement
Accessibility and inclusion in research
Building pathways between discovery and impact

Related initiative: ACCESS Lab