The Wellesley Institute (WI) is pleased to announce a call for proposals for Enabling Grants under its Urban Health Research Programme. Enabling Grants are small, time-limited grants intended to support academics, community agencies and providers to collaboratively pursue research on issues that urban communities identify as important. These may include identifying unmet needs, exploring or testing effective solutions to problems they experience, or increasing our understanding of the forces that shape people's health and the way these forces affect people's health.
This year’s Enabling Grants will be directed by the following broad themes:
- Health Equity Practice
Much has been written regarding ‘health equity’ as a priority in urban health. Recently the Toronto Central LHIN released a detailed report by Dr. Bob Gardner of the Wellesley Institute which outlines options and recommendations for the development of local strategies around health equity. The WI is looking for community based research that considers and/or demonstrates how health equity can be built into systems of health care (formal and informal) at the local level. - Collaboration and Community Engagement
The WI is interested in research that documents and examines practical examples of collaboration in which community members, groups and organizations have come together to share resources, form alliances, and take action towards social change. The research will identify and highlight mechanisms for effective community engagement and collaboration. The WI is particularly interested in examples that document where clear impacts in practice or in policy are discernable at community and neighbourhood levels. For example, projects exploring the role of the ‘third sector’ in neighbourhood redevelopment or regeneration that would link the ideas of community collaborations to the transformation of neighbourhoods at the local level. We are especially interested in documenting models of successful community engagement and the practical steps in the evaluation of such efforts. - Social Innovation
The WI is interested in examining new models and examples of social entrepreneurship in the non-profit sector. For example, progressive Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) building alliances with non-traditional partners (i.e. Private and public partnerships), the development of for- profit socially responsible programs, or projects that explore non-traditional funding sources (i.e. micro-credit schemes or loans). We wish to understand how agencies are moving research and practice in urban health forward through social innovation and social entrepreneurship.
Program Guidelines: A guide to the Wellesley Institute Enabling Grant Program
Community-Based Research Enabling Grant Application Form - WORD Version (to submit electronically) | PDF Version
Application Due Date: October 31, 2008
In keeping with the strategic goals of the organization, projects supported by the WI should focus on the social determinants of health and health disparities, focusing on the relationships between health and housing (including neighbourhood renewal and regeneration efforts), poverty and income distribution, social exclusion and other social and economic inequalities.