Grant: Planning Grants - Priority Announcement: Infection and Immunity

The proposed activity is directly relevant to the Health Services/Population Health Research stream of the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Initiative. Universities Without Walls, a national network funded by a CIHR Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research (STIHR) grant, is an innovative, interdisciplinary model for training an emerging cadre of graduate students in population health and health services research for HIV/AIDS. Between June 14-18, the 2010 Summer Learning Institute will bring together Universities Without Walls fellows, community members, junior public health and policy people with academic and community based faculty from across Canada. This request for funding will go towards organizing a day-long professional "train the trainer" session, prior to the Summer Learning Institute, to bring together the faculty of the Institute with an expert in adult education and two co-facilitators with a view to augmenting the pedagogical skills of the faculty. Feedback received from the 2009 Summer Learning Institute emphasized the need to enhance the pedagogical and group facilitation skills by organizing a learning day prior to the Institute. The proposed learning day seeks to enhance the Knowledge Transfer and Exchange capacities of the faculty which in turn, will benefit the new generation of population health and health services researchers in HIV/AIDS that Universities Without Walls is striving to champion.