Additional Partner(s):
- Fancy Poitras – Providence Health Care
- Krista Stelkia – Simon Fraser University
- Sarah de Leeuw – University of Northern British Columbia
- Judy Sturm – BC Centre for Disease Control
- Teresa Tsang – Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
This project investigates how research standards and governance models shape health research in urban Indigenous contexts, focusing on engagement, data sovereignty, and knowledge translation. Urban Indigenous Peoples make up the majority of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, yet often experience systemic exclusion from research, constraining their ability to define and govern the production of knowledge about their own communities. While frameworks like OCAP® and TCPS2 Chapter 9 have advanced ethical practices for research involving Indigenous communities, their emphasis on nation-based governance structures do not adequately account for the complex realities of urban Indigenous populations and organizations. Using Indigenous Research Methodologies and Community-Based Participatory Action Research, this study explores how research standards, evaluation metrics, and funding structures can better reflect the realities of urban Indigenous Peoples in BC.
Led by Dr. Gabrielle Legault in collaboration with Dr. Peter Hutchinson, Dr. Shawn Wilson, Dr. Alanaise Ferguson, Dr. Skye Barbic, and Lindsay DuPré, and engaging Indigenous and non-Indigenous health organizations in BC, this project identifies barriers and opportunities for ethical and culturally grounded research in partnership with urban Indigenous communities. Guided by an Urban Indigenous Research Advisory Circle and using a scoping review, surveys, interviews, and sharing circles, this project examines how existing research governance and data management practices can be adapted to support urban Indigenous research. Anticipated outcomes include a toolkit and academic publications for broad accessibility and impact across research, health, and policy sectors.
Funded through the Research on Research Joint Initiative—a collaboration between the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Michael Smith Health Research BC—this work seeks to inform shifts in research governance that uphold Indigenous self-determination, ensuring the meaning inclusion of urban Indigenous perspectives in the future of health research.