Meta-research in Canada

RoRI has more core partners in Canada than in any other country: CIHR, SSHRC and Health Research BC are all active in the consortium.

In April 2024, James Wilsdon, RoRI’s executive director, headed to Ottawa for a round of meetings with our partners to discuss live plans and projects, and to explore how RoRI can support efforts to build meta-research capacity and connections across the Canadian R&D system. 

This included a 22 April panel discussion on meta-research in Canada, at which James spoke alongside Kelly Cobey (Professor at University of Ottawa and Co-Chair of DORA); Karim Khan (Professor at University of British Columbia and Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis); Vincent Larivière (Professor at University of Montreal and UNESCO Chair for Open Science); and AO Valerie La Traverse (Vice-President for Corporate Affairs at SSHRC).

Around 300 participants from Canadian funding agencies attended in person or online – illustrating the levels of interest in this agenda across the system. View highlights from the panel below:

James also gave a roundtable talk at ISED, Canada’s Ministry for Innovation, Science and Economic Development and stopped off in Toronto for a lively session with the team at CIFAR (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research) to explore how meta-research might inform the implementation of their new strategy.

Warm thanks to colleagues at SSHRC, CIHR and Health Research BC for hosting us and facilitating such a rich series of discussions.