Our current and recent projects include:
Design Thinking Foundations. Through the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, we are conducting research aimed at unpacking the concept of “design thinking” by speaking to thought leaders and practitioners using it in their work. This multi-year study, funded by CENSE Research + Design and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, is grafting the knowledge of design practice, leading edge design and social science research, with theories of change, creativity and development to generate a dynamic theory of design thinking and knowledge base that we believe can lead to greater integration of design into society.
Youth Engagement. As members of the Youth Voices Research Group, we supported more than 15 years of leading edge research on youth engagement for health promotion. We are currently developing a series of academic papers and presentations on the research conducted during the 2010-11 year and creating resources for social service and public policy professionals on ways to engage young people in meaningful dialogue on issues of health and social wellbeing.
We are currently working with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada on delivering an arts-informed training program and evaluation to support youth leadership in clubs across the country.
Developmental Evaluation for Young Professional Engagement on Social Policy & Innovation in eHealth. Working through the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, we are co-developing and implementing a developmental evaluation of two innovative programs on young professional development on eHealth and eGovernment in the Latin America/Caribbean (LAC) region. This project, funded by the International Development Research Centre, seeks to use the DE approach to advance the learning about social innovation with two novel programs. We are also conducting research on the use of DE itself to assist IDRC in learning more about how this novel approach to complexity and evaluation could be applied to other projects.
Social Organizing / Design Charrettes for Health. Our CoNEKTR model was developed from years of experience in social organizing for health, building on the Unconference, Open Space Technology and the World Cafe approach to ideation. We are now exploring the potential that the Design Charrette has to add or complement this model by exploring settings and partners where we can take this well-used approach to social planning and model it for healthy community development. Drawing on our training in the NCI Charrette system and Cognitive Edge toolkit, we are extending the Charrette into health promotion.
(e)Health literacy. Literacy underpins all of what we do in our health communications with the public and professionals alike. Electronic tools like social media, websites and mobile handsets only add to the literacy demands. Drawing on our pioneering work on eHealth literacy, we continue to explore ways to advance the health systems’ overall capacity for using eHealth tools effectively to support healthy decision making with professionals and the public alike. Through active scholarship, presentations, and training, we maintain an ongoing commitment to helping raise awareness and creating evidence to support better health literacy practice.
Research on Academic Research. The RoAR initiative began in 2006 at the University of British Columbia by looking at the impact of design on research collaboration. Over 5 years the design of space, social networks, academic discipline structures and the opportunities for discovery that come when basic scientists move into a new facility was explored and analyzed using social network models, bibliometrics and behavioural science measures of change. The findings of this project are still being analyzed and published, including a recent article in the American Journal of Evaluation and Research Evaluation.