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Community-Engaged Research Days – 2025
					
 Mar 27, 2025 to Mar 28, 2025 
 9:30AM to 6:00PM

									

				

					Event Categories   Spark Talks
				

			


	

	

		

			

				

					

						

														

															

						

						

	

		


	Date/Time

	Date(s) - 27/03/2025 - 28/03/2025
9:30 am - 6:00 pm









Location: McMaster Centre for Continuing Education – 1 James St North, L8P 1A1


In an era of complex social challenges, community-engaged research (CER) has emerged as a powerful approach to producing knowledge that is both academically rigorous and socially impactful. However, the practice of CER often falls short of its ideals, with power imbalances, logistical hurdles, and ethical dilemmas hindering truly collaborative partnerships between researchers and communities.


To address these critical issues, Spark partnered with the Office of Community Engagement to organize a free two-day conference, “Building Capacity for Ethical and Effective Community Engaged Research,” scheduled for March 27-28, 2025.


The conference is built around four consecutive workshops on challenging engaged research topics, featuring expert speakers from both academic and community backgrounds. The event’s innovative format goes beyond traditional presentations, incorporating interactive elements such as small group discussions, role-playing exercises, and a gallery of community research projects. This approach will provide participants with practical tools and strategies to implement in their own work, while also creating opportunities for new relationships to form.


Thursday, March 27



Friday, March 28



Propose a Research Gallery Submission Here


Get Your Tickets Here 


Opportunities and Challenges with ‘Insider Research’


This workshop explores insider research, a methodological approach where researchers conduct investigations within social groups, organizations, or cultures of which they are members. While insider research offers significant advantages—such as enhanced rapport with participants and deep contextual knowledge)—it also presents unique challenges around objectivity, role navigation, and emotional investment. Dual roles as researcher and community member can lead to paralyzing self-doubt, value conflicts, trust issues, and pressure to repeatedly justify their credibility academically. This workshop will explore these pitfalls and ways to build confidence in the process and findings of insider research. After the speakers share their experiences, participants will engage in a series of facilitated table discussions based on pre-submitted scenarios from participants’ own work. Collective exploration of these scenarios should identify major opportunities and challenges to be systemically addressed. The session will conclude with a collaborative discussion of best practices.


Speakers: Brad Evoy and staff from The Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) research team will lead the session. Brad is DJNO’s Executive Director and a member of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation. His lived experience as a Disabled person fundamentally shapes his approach to community-driven research and justice work.


 


The Devil is in the Details: Compensation, Timelines, and Other Issues of Access and Inclusion in CER Logistics


The concepts of “access” and “inclusion” are fundamental to community participation in research, shaping the nature and quality of community-academic partnerships. Issues such as funding, time constraints, and the value of diversity in community engaged research are all too common issues and require thoughtful navigation. The speakers will discuss the challenges to meaningful community inclusion and access in research and will offer insights and guidance based on their experiences. Participants will then engage in structured breakout sessions on addressing barriers to access and inclusion in research.


Speakers: Lyndon George, Executive Director of the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre (HARRC), will be joined by Madeleine Luvisa, Emily Sullo, and Ella Rice Hui from McMaster’s Offord Centre for Child Studies, and Monika Musan, Yemurai Mushakwe, Areebah Qureshi, and Jenna Azzam who are Youth Peer Researchers. Together, they are partners in an ongoing youth-led participatory action research study that examines young people’s experiences of discrimination and violence. Drawing from their current partnership, the facilitators will share concrete examples of how institutional contexts create barriers and erode trust, while discussing how to better manage inclusive and meaningful community-engaged research.


 


Evolving Community Research Ethics


This intensive, interactive workshop challenges participants to think about research ethics in new ways, and identify how they can be at the forefront of making research genuinely work for communities.  We will focus on an emerging trend toward community-developed ethical frameworks for CER—a paradigm shift in the approach to conducting research with and within communities, particularly those that have been historically marginalized or exploited.  The workshop will begin in a “fishbowl” where a small group speaks in a circle, with an audience circle surrounding them. Anyone can come and go from the small group discussion or post a anonymous question via your phone. A wide variety of discussants will offer a comprehensive view of evolving community research ethics from multiple perspectives. Table discussions based on participant questions and queries will follow.


Speakers: Presenters Nicolas Crier and Samona Marsh work as overdose responders and outreach workers as well as research coordinators in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Presenter Sara Howdle from the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute (MIRI) will discuss OCAP® Principles in Indigenous research contexts and their application in MIRI’s Indigenous Research Primer. Both documents will be available to participants in advance. The workshop begins with these presenters laying out the standards established for researchers and the context, process, and impact of establishing research standards. From there, Leah Levac and Barb Powell will be invited to comment on what has been presented, ask questions of the previous presenters, and share their experience establishing a Community Research Ethics Office that supports research happening entirely outside of an academic institution. Tara LaRose, Chair of McMaster’s Research Ethics Board and Mary-Elizabeth Vaccaro, will add perspective on tensions between institutional and community ethical obligations and ways to navigate them. Subhanya Sivajothy and Danica Evering from McMaster Library’s Sherman Centre will offer a process for discussing data ownership and management in community-engaged research.


 


Communication in Research: Having the ‘Hard Conversations’


This hands-on, theatre-based workshop will help you build skills in a safe space for addressing the communication challenges that often arise in community-campus partnerships. Through acting out and then dissecting scenarios, participants can both see in action and practice specific communication skills such as reflective listening, appreciative inquiry, nonviolent communication, and supportive communication.


Speakers: This workshop on communication and conflict in community-engaged research will be co-facilitated by Ruth Greenspan and Allison Van. Ruth Greenspan Ruth Greenspan is a social worker, a community advocate, a community engager, a manager, an educator, a parent, a partner and a group facilitator. She completed her undergraduate degree at Carleton University in law and psychology and her graduate degree an MSW at the University of Toronto. Hamilton has been her home with her partner and 3 children for the last 27 years. She is a former Executive Director of the John Howard Society of Hamilton, Burlington and area, and a sessional faculty member in the School of Social Work. Allison Van, Executive Director of Spark at McMaster University, brings extensive experience in community partnerships and conflict resolution.


Get Your Tickets Here