CIHR Institute of Gender and Health opens Vancouver office, hosts nation-wide Listening Tour

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Gender and Health (IGH) – led by scientific director and Faculty of Health Sciences professor Angela Kaida – is celebrating the opening of its new office at Simon Fraser University’s Vancouver campus, located at Harbour Centre. 

The hour-long event will take place on May 2, 2023 from 9:00 am PDT and will be livestreamed on Facebook. A recording of the proceedings will be available on the CIHR’s Facebook account after the event.

Elder Sheila Nyman, Indigenous Elder-in-Residence at IGH will open the proceedings, welcoming attendees to the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples.

Other speakers at the opening will include:

• Dr. Joy Johnson, SFU president and vice-chancellor (and former CIHR IGH scientific director)
• Dr. Michael Strong, CIHR president
• Dr. Brianne Kent, CIHR Governing Council member and SFU Psychology assistant professor
• Dr. Angela Kaida, CIHR IGH scientific director and SFU Health Sciences professor

While this event marks the opening of the IGH’s office in Vancouver, Kaida and the IGH team have been working assiduously since January 2023, laying the groundwork for the development of the Institute’s 2024-2028 strategic plan.

Kaida and her team are interested in engaging community to co-create the next strategic plan for the institute, and are currently conducting a Listening Tour with virtual focus groups and hybrid townhall events in major cities across Canada to hear from contributors and collaborators. They are interested in engaging with researchers – including trainees and early career researchers – community partners, healthcare professionals and many others to hear their ideas about how IGH can best resource and support advancements in sex and gender science and health equity for women and girls, boys and men and gender-diverse people.  

“The institute is committed both to generating research about the impacts of sex and gender on health, and to flowing that data back to community through knowledge translation and direct engagement,” says Kaida. “During the Listening Tour, we want to learn what different partners consider to be essential research priorities to guide our work over the next five years.”

If you would like to contribute your thoughts and ideas for the next strategic plan for the Institute of Gender and Health, but are unable to attend a Listening Tour session, please consider adding to the conversation via this online survey.

Learn more about the Institute of Gender and Health