A CMHC-SSHRC Joint Initiative: Collaborative Housing Research Network

The Collaborative Housing Research Network supports the focus on enhanced research under Canada’s National Housing Strategy.

The Collaborative Housing Research Network is an independent, Canada-wide collaboration of academics and community partners. It’s focused on holistic research of housing conditions, needs and outcomes in support of the priority areas of the National Housing Strategy.

The Collaborative Housing Research Network provides objective, recognized, and high-quality research that can support housing policy decision-making and inform future program development. It’s a joint initiative between CMHC and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council or SSHRC.

Approximately $7.9M has been committed by CMHC to the Network for its initial 5 years. Total funding available is $13.9M over the duration of the initiative as part of the National Housing Strategy

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Description and Objectives

The Network is expected to:

Generate New Knowledge by conducting research across a nationally-linked network of researchers and housing related stakeholders (across all disciplines)
Bridge Gaps Between Research Outcomes And Impact On Housing by:
- accelerating translation of research discoveries into applications, best practices and/or the marketplace
- developing, validating and evaluating interventions that change significant aspects of practice
- evaluating the outcomes of different housing interventions to identify and document health, social and other impacts

Each funded team involves academics, community organizations, students, and other interested partners, and be rooted in principles of community-based research.

The Collaborative Housing Research Structure

Research Teams bring together a unified group of researchers and other stakeholders. Each node will be coordinated by a project director and responsible to focus on one thematic research area—supporting the National Housing Strategy priority areas of action.

These individual teams link together, via the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative. In this “network of networks”, research activities and creating knowledge will be greater than the sum of its parts.

The Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative coordinates research collaboration and planning internally between the research teams. They do the same externally for academia, government and the housing community. It will also manage reporting and focus on knowledge mobilization within the network and externally. External knowledge mobilization will include developing and managing a website including a blog and other related activities.

Watch the Minister’s message that relates to this program.