Grant: Planning Grants

Knowledge translation is the process of transforming knowledge into action and is a concept which is a particularly integral component of health research and outcomes. In Euro-Western American models of research, resulting knowledge is privileged, despite the fact that there are other valid ways of developing our understanding of the world. Of interest to Indigenous researchers is the interface of two stereotypically mutually exclusive worlds: science anchored in Euro-Western American paradigms and those knowledge(s) rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing and being. As the National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, we sit at the crossroads between these two worldviews: on the one hand, we are a government organization, conducting Aboriginal health research; on the other hand, we work for Aboriginal peoples, to improve their health outcomes and wellbeing. The unique and often marginalized knowledge(s) of the world's Indigenous peoples offers ways to move forward for health practitioners, researchers and communities committed to improving the health status of Canada's Aboriginal peoples. The proposed day and a half meeting invites leading Indigenous thinkers and health experts to continue the dialogue started in 2007 on Indigenous knowledge synthesis and transfer. The meeting will be held at UBC's Longhouse with the intent of exploring research and evidence-based decision making in different ways. It will invite both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples from across Canada to deepen a dialogue on the concept of knowledge synthesis, translation and exchange from a variety of perspectives. This meeting will continue the process of transforming how researchers, practitioners and policy makers think of knowledge, and how Indigenous knowledge(s) Western approaches interface. This exchange is vital to the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal peoples, and offers the non-Aboriginal community the opportunity to think about knowledge(s) in diverse ways.