Research Ethics Board Approval for Phase 2
In January 2025, we received approval for Phase 2 of the ICOI project from the Toronto Metropolitan University Research Ethics Board. We are currently awaiting ethics approval from three additional academic partner institutions. Once all approvals are in place, we will initiate virtual training sessions for our research assistants, who will support participant recruitment and data collection.
Year 5 ICOI Summit
The 2025 ICOI Summit was held from March 27 to 28 at the SHERPA University Institute in Montreal, Quebec. To begin, team members gathered for a welcome dinner on the evening of March 26, setting the tone for a productive and collaborative summit. This two-day event brought together community and academic team members, both in person and virtually, to share updates, reflect on progress, and plan the next steps for the project.
We extend our sincere thanks to Professor Jill Hanley, Quebec Site Lead and Social Inclusion Stream Lead, for her leadership and support in organizing the summit in Montreal.
The summit was a resounding success. Highlights included presentations of key findings from Phase 1 of the ICOI project, collaborative planning sessions for upcoming data analysis and publications, and in-depth discussions on the next phase of interventions. The event also created space for valuable contributions from research assistants, students, and local community partners, whose insights enriched the conversations and strengthened our shared commitment to the project’s goals.
Participant Observation Data Collection
In March 2024, we received approval from the TMU Research Ethics Board to proceed with participant observation activities. By the end of August 2024, we had also secured approval from the Research Ethics Boards at all our academic partner institutions. Following Research Ethics Boards approval, we held bi-weekly virtual training sessions for the research assistants who engaged in participant recruitment and data collection. The virtual training sessions were led by Professors Oona St-Amant and Sepali Guruge to learn how to conduct participant observations. These sessions ran from August until the completion of participant observation data collection in November. The training sessions were recorded and made available for the research assistants for future reference. We completed this phase of data collection in November, 2024. The number of participant observations conducted in each city is illustrated in the table below.
