Welcome to McMaster’s Faculty of Social Sciences’ Community Engaged Research map
McMaster is committed to advancing research that promotes a better and healthier world for all. To achieve this goal, we recognize the importance of working across disciplines and faculties and in collaboration with communities.
In the Faculty of Social Sciences, researchers are working with diverse community partners (locally, regionally, and internationally) to collaboratively address critical societal issues and to advance the public good.
In early 2020 the Faculty of Social Sciences conducted a survey to better understand the community-engaged research (CER) taking place within the Faculty. What we found was that 25% of our faculty members had engaged in CER in the previous year. Cumulatively they conducted 68 projects with more than 130 community partners.
We felt this was a story that needed to be shared.
In addition to capturing these projects, we endeavored to create a new system to systematically track and share our Faculty’s CER to better recognize, foster and advance this work. We hope this will be a place for both researchers and the broader community to learn more about CER at McMaster and foster new collaborative research partnerships and projects.
Our interactive community engaged research map (featured below) allows you to learn more about these unique research partnerships and projects. This map will be of interest to researchers, public, private, and non-profit sector organizations and community groups interested in research that advances both scholarly knowledge and societal health and well-being.
How Do We Define Community Engaged Research?
Community Engaged Research (CER) is an approach to identifying knowledge gaps, producing, and disseminating knowledge with community stakeholders.
With this approach, researchers and community groups combine their expertise and resources to conduct research that has a positive and tangible community impact: improving wellbeing and resilience, shedding light on social issues, supporting innovation, contributing to the public good, or providing guidance for policy.
Community groups may be public, private, and non-profit sector organizations, as well as groups that share common histories, interests, values, or challenges.
By engaging communities in shaping a study’s goals, questions, methods, and end products, researchers can bolster the usability and relevance of their scholarship.
McMaster Community Engaged Research Projects: What Are They and How to Find Them?
The map below showcases Community Engaged Research projects between McMaster University’s Faculty of Social Sciences researchers and local, regional, and international community partners. The information displayed in this data is real-time information updated regularly from McMaster Experts.
McMaster Experts provides the public with a central point of information about the expertise, research activities and interests, and publications of McMaster’s faculty. The map features seventeen research categories that our projects fall under. Each category in the map has been filtered with specific icons for easy visualization. Use the buttons on the side of the map to choose a category and zoom in or out to adapt your view of the map.
You may also search by location using the search bar at the top of the map. Each point when clicked has a pop-up which contains pertinent information about the project.
To enlarge the pop-up window click on the small square in the right hand corner of the pop-up above the project title. If there is more than one project associated with a point on the map, click the arrows on the bottom right corner of the pop-up window to view each project. If you would like to view the Experts profile of a researcher from any project listed on the map, click on the primary researcher’s name in the project pop-up window.
Here's Why We Value Community Engaged Research!
Select quotes from Researchers at McMaster and Community Partners:
Contact Us
Do you have questions about our map? Would you like to get your project added? Please connect with Research Support at fsscer@mcmaster.ca
Interested to learn more about Community Engaged Research at McMaster?
Here are some links:
Contributors
Cartography
- Emily Carrasco-Acosta (Undergraduate Research Assistant, School of Earth, Environment, and Society)
- Christine Homuth (Spatial Information Specialist, McMaster University Library)
Data
- Jason Brodeur (Associate Director, Digital Scholarship Services, McMaster University Library)
- David Bai (Developer, McMaster University Library)
- Rusneet Manchanda (Placement student, McMaster University)
Media
- Branding at McMaster, iStock
Writing
- Leora Sas van der Linden (Manager, Community Research Platform, Faculty of Social Sciences)
- Emily Carrasco-Acosta (Undergraduate Research Assistant, School of Earth, Environment, and Society)
- Christine Hollins (Research Administration Analyst, Faculty of Social Sciences)
- Kaitlin Wynia Baluk (PhD Candidate, Department of Health, Aging and Society)
Contributions
- Ameil Joseph (Associate Professor, School of Social Work)
- Diana Singh (Post Doctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology)
- Violetta Nikolskaya (Senior Program Analyst, YWCA Hamilton)
References
- Cook, J. R., & Nation, M. (2016). Community engagement: Universities’ roles in building communities and strengthening democracy.?Community Development,?47(5), 718-731.
- Isler, M. R., & Corbie?Smith, G. (2012). Practical steps to community engaged research: from inputs to outcomes.?The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics,?40(4), 904-914.
- Hall, P. V., & MacPherson, I. (2011).?Community-university research partnerships: Reflections on the Canadian social economy experience. University of Victoria.
- Minkler, M. (2005). Community-based research partnerships: challenges and opportunities.?Journal of urban health,?82(2), ii3-ii12.
- Minkler, M., & Wallerstein, N. (Eds.). (2011). Community-based participatory research for health: From process to outcomes. John Wiley & Sons.
- Stanton, T. K. (2007). New times demand new scholarship: Opportunities and challenges for civic engagement at research universities.?Education, Citizenship and Social Justice,?3(1), 19-42.