About Us

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.

SIRG is an incubator for students, faculty, and community partners committed to community-based/engaged research and community development in the area of social work and social justice. SIRG welcomes Master’s, PhD, and postdoctoral fellows from a variety of academic disciplines to work within our communities of practice, including but not limited to areas focused on: theorizing university-community collaboration, leadership in social work, community-led mental health, death, dying and bereavement (macro focused projects), poverty in local and global contexts, the social economy and co-operatives, social innovation, intimate partner violence, and newcomer economic integration issues.

Guiding Principles

SIRG is committed to:

• University-community collaboration through community based/community engaged research and community development.
• Encouraging research and community development activities etched within feminist, community development, and decolonizing frameworks that conform to relevant university policies.
• Contributing to the intellectual climate of the Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work through research initiatives, symposiums, conferences, seminars, workshops, and advocacy activities honouring the values and principles of social work practice.
• Being a crossroads of graduate and post-graduate students, faculty, and community partners committed to critical and respectful transformational change in the community.
• Supporting junior faculty colleagues and graduate students within the FSW in order to support research programs that embrace the belief that public intellectuals should be of service to the communities in which they live and work.
• Upholding the principles of leadership and community outreach inherent within the mission statement of WLU and to render the Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work an academic entity that is relevant and of service to the larger Region of Waterloo and beyond.

Mission

SIRG’s main purpose as a research entity is to encourage, through a framework of university-community collaboration, a network of FSW faculty members, students, and community partners to carry out community-led or community-initiated research and evaluation projects, as well as to provide and facilitate educational opportunities through symposiums, conferences, and workshops dedicated to social justice work. Feminism(s), intersectionality and social justice are driving philosophical elements that have shaped and continue to influence the ways in which the SIRG team works within community. Transformative change through community development and advocacy projects shape the ways that SIRG trains practicum students and collaborates with community partners.

Values

The raison d’être of SIRG is to honour the idea that public intellectuals should be of service to community partners. Our values guide our research process:

• Intersectional feminism and feminist research methods.
• Respectful community relations grounded in mutuality and reciprocity.
• Meaningful and transformative service to community partners.
• Research and service rooted in a social justice framwork.

Vision

• To support the next generation of feminist academic researchers.
• To lift up community voices that often go unheard.
• To make authentic community-engaged research by public intellectuals a norm.