What is the IAP2 Canada Research Committee?

The IAP2 Canada Research Committee works to help members better understand current public participation activities in Canada. Various engagement efforts with members found a need to increase access to research journals, training (including workshops) and training manuals; and to develop mechanisms for knowledge transfer among cross-disciplinary organizations.

Research is focused on identifying trends, best practices and areas of innovation, as well as evaluating current research and publications for the purpose of identifying opportunities for partnership and collaboration. The 2017 State of the Practice survey report helped guide the development of the 2018-2020 IAP2 Canada Strategic Plan.

The Committee has also commissioned and published four White Papers, which are available for downloading:

• Challenges and Advancements in Evaluating Public Participation
• Conflict Management in P2.
• Getting Support for Public Engagement from Decision-Makers.
• Social Media Applications for Public Participation

Among the Research Committee's other activities include "TLDR" (Too Long - Didn't Read), summaries of P2-related articles and papers, which appear from time to time in the semi-monthly IAP2 Canada newsletter.