Shaping Academia for the Public Good: Critical Reflections on the CHSRF/CIHR Chairs Program

With increasing demands for evidence-based decision-making, the academic community must be ready to train researchers who can reduce the gap between health care research and practice. One program dedicated to promoting such training is the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF, now the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement) and Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Chair Program. Participants of these programs were selected to develop innovative research programs that bridge this divide, as well as to mentor the next generation on building partnerships with organizations outside the university through applied research.

The CHSRF/CIHR Chairs have come together in Shaping Academia for the Public Good to draw out valuable lessons learned throughout its first decade. It includes chapters on funding, knowledge transfer, policy frameworks, working with multiple stakeholders, and managing organizational settings, among other topics. Shaping Academia for the Public Good will be a helpful resource for those interested in the potential of new research approaches to improve our healthcare system.

Louise Potvin is Canada Research Chair in Community Approaches and Health Inequality and a professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at l’Université de Montréal.
Pat Armstrong is a Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.