Grant: Training Grant: Healthy Cities Research Training Platform - LOI

Approach: Bringing Urban-based solutions from Implementation science to future Leaders and Decision-makers, or BUILD, is a proposed national training platform that aims to establish a multi-level certification program supported by interdisciplinary and intersectoral partnerships across Canada. BUILD will draw from real world and provide hands-on experiences to teach critical skills on the design, implementation, and evaluation of complex interventions to address a diverse set of challenges impacting population health and wellbeing in Canadian cities. Objectives: To build capacity in the design, piloting, evaluation, implementation, and scaling of interventions to reduce environmental, social, and health inequities in cities by: 1. Establishing and applying best practices in academic, professional, and experiential education in implementation science and solutions-based research; 2. Developing a core and interdisciplinary set of competencies among learners (trainees and knowledge users) that can be applied to diverse challenges facing cities; 3. Creating and fostering a national, and internationally-recognized, community of practice of experienced mentors; 4. Ensuring the multidimensional career readiness of learners; 5. Facilitating opportunities for interagency networking and intersectoral partnerships. Equity: By focusing on growing environmental, social, and health inequities between and within Canadian cities, BUILD takes an intersectional approach, integrating inclusion of populations excluded at societal and community levels based on intersecting race; sex, gender, and sexual orientation; religion; migration status; socioeconomic status; disability; and geographical location. BUILD prioritizes inclusion of these populations at all levels of the platform, including in leadership, team, partnership development plan for engaging partners and collaborators, approaches, design, curriculum, instructors, learners (trainees and knowledge users), and evaluation.