Purpose of the ACER Program
The ACER program aims to facilitate and support active partnerships between researchers, trainees, health professionals and people affected by or who may benefit from the research or healthcare improvement projects.
By involving patients, survivors, caregivers, and families in the process, the ACER program ensures that those directly impacted by PAYA cancer have a voice in shaping research priorities and funding decisions within CCMB and CHRIM.
Levels of Engagement
Overall, the ACER program will facilitate meaningful partnerships between researchers and people with lived experience to overcome ‘differences in knowledge and research experience’ that have been reported to challenge communication and limit meaningful collaboration(1, 2, 3). Levels of community involvement will be tailored to an individual’s preferences and time availability.
Different levels of engagement include:
- Academic research engagement – contributing to grant proposals and plain language summaries of research findings;
- Networking – including meet-and-greet sessions with researchers and trainees, symposiums and seminars;
- Media engagement – contributing to the preparation of articles, reports, social media content, interviews and advocating for research activities.
- Involvement in the ACER leadership committee, which will oversee the ACER program.
The ACER program is led by the ACER Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Committee), given that national agencies like CCS encourage ‘meaningful, integrated involvement of relevant stakeholders (i.e., patients, public, at-risk, underserved populations)’ in the research projects of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, this ACER program will also facilitate partnership opportunities for trainees based at CCMB and CHRIM.
The PROMISE team recognizes that historically, many important voices have been systematically excluded from health care and research spaces. We are committed to anti-oppressive research and practice and see community engagement as a meaningful step toward health equity in a deeply inequitable system. Engagement also improves the quality of training in health sciences health sciences education through expanding the range of perspectives that influence its rationales, designs, and other processes as well as increase its relevance to patients(2, 3). Furthermore, the ACER committee will have the mandate to form an ACER advisory panel for reviewing grant, awards and scholarship applications from PROMISE members.