A Message from the Director

Rooted in intersectional feminist philosophies and social justice, the Social Innovation Research Group (SIRG) is focused on local and global issues. Our research group is dedicated to pursuing and promoting the dismantling of power inequities and values, supporting groups and individuals to enhance their own capacity for community-building through research, process and outcome evaluations, grant-writing, training, and other services. SIRG is also a space to train untenured academics interested in community-engaged research. Peer mentoring amongst all SIRG stakeholders nurtures our colleagues and creates opportunities for them to connect with the networks that SIRG has cultivated over the years.

A Message from Our Director

I am pleased to welcome everyone visiting our site on this new digital platform. As the founding director of SIRG, it is with enormous pleasure that I hope to share the work we’ve accomplished as well as the work in which we are currently immersed. The Social Innovation Research Group is a feminist research and training incubator for students, faculty, community partners, and working professionals dedicated to community-informed research and evaluation.

The raison d’être of SIRG is to honour the idea that public intellectuals should be of service to community partners, while grounded in mutuality and reciprocity. This service should be meaningful and transformative for community partners and rooted in a social justice framework. A legacy of authentic community-based research can only materialize through modelling this work to placement students and research assistants, who will become the next generation of feminist academic researchers.

Since 2003, we have worked with women’s organizations, equity-led grassroots organizations, health and social service agencies, Indigenous organizations, international universities, municipal and regional governments, and members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. We have collaborated across academic boundaries and encouraged dialogue and collaboration on a number of provincial, national, and international issues.

I am pleased to share that my colleagues and I have been involved in some innovative and transformative projects that honour the idea that when community partners and academics get together, exciting outcomes can emerge. In the past, we have contributed to the emergence of two Child Witness Centres, developed a sexual assault protocol in the Region of Waterloo, influenced policies around gender-based violence at Wilfrid Laurier University, and have trained well over 150 MSW students in community engaged research. Staff who have worked at SIRG have gone on to assume positions as professors, researchers, policy-makers, executive directors and other leaders in their respective fields of practice.

If you are interested in collaborating with SIRG, have an idea which you would like to pitch, volunteer or work with us in any capacity, please do not hesitate to reach out to the SIRG office at glafreniere@wlu.ca. 

Ginette Lafrenière, MA, MSW, PhD