Research Advisory Group Meeting
October 19th, 2015
Attending: Toddi Steelman, Jennifer Fresque-Baxter, Stuart Macmillan, Graham Strickert, Tim
Jardine, Maureen Reed, Sarah Baines, Kiri Staples
Regrets: Greg Poelzer
Action Items
Task
Responsible
Send template letters of support
Kiri
Send out SSHRC guidelines for “relevant experiences” section
Kiri
Letters of support, SSHRC CV and relevant experience
Various
paragraph
Paragraph describing social network analysis as a performance
Graham
indicator
Meeting Minutes
Focus of this meeting will be on the Connection Grant we are preparing for Delta Days 2016.
Overall outcome

Need to be clear on outcome/deliverables – what do we want to produce as a result of this
event? We have floated a couple of ideas – coffee table book (like “The Meaning of
Ice”), video, etc. – all with strengths and weaknesses.

We also need to decide for the sake of this grant application if this is an event or an
outcome (SSHRC provides different levels of funding for these)

Have to be clear who we are targeting with this – the policy piece is a bit harder to nail
down
o Bridging relationship between researchers and communities is something we
could focus on, policy piece could be next step

Is there something in our proposal that might be appealing for policy makers?
o Some people in policy and decision-making already use traditional and local
knowledge in decision-making, but it needs to be improved upon
o What are the ways we bridge knowledge systems? – this is a big area that policy
folks might be interested in

What if we had a more modest outcome – something that could move between the
communities, and communities could add to it along the way
o Communities would be target of travelling presentation, and a separate piece
would be on how to bridge knowledge more effectively for decision makers and
managers. For the second piece, a policy brief (something short with specific
recommendations) might be appropriate. This could dovetail with the travelling
presentation – same info, just repackaged.
o It would be helpful to have a travelling presentation go to the Universities as well
o Could we look at having this presentation in the space where policy makers work?
e.g. local ENR offices in Fort Smith, because decision-making happens at
multiple levels

Could invite policy makers to workshop, but we need to decide who is defined as a policy
maker
o The people who make the decision on issuing permits and authorizing
development would be one level
o There is frustration in the community that high-level decision-makers don’t show
up to these workshops – it is unlikely they would come to this
o Could mid-level policy folk video conference in for part of the workshop? They
could also be invited to the travelling presentation.

We need quantifiable outcomes for SSHRC – e.g. goes around twice to each community
over the course of a year, number of people who will attend
o If communities take ownership and start to present it themselves, that’s a success
– is also a way to maintain connections between deltas

What does this travelling presentation look like?
o Posters with stories in both languages, photos that youth take, sound bites
o Could we get collaboration from someone in the Drama department to help design
this? Someone at the local museum staff could help as well.

Add in language about double/triple loop learning
Budget

If the travelling presentation was done at SRDP/PADEMP meetings, those in-kind costs
can be leveraged, and so can the travel for other groups (e.g. other researchers) taking
presentation to the communities

The materials for a travelling presentation would be approx. $5-10k

Kiri will send around a template for letters of support
Performance indicators

If the main outcomes are an interactive learning display and policy brief, one measure is
the number of times we could show the display (approx. 8 – twice in three communities
and one University)

Number of HQPs – people who facilitate (not including faculty members), students from
deltas, Elders, University students, people who physically create outputs

Audience numbers

Media coverage

Logging how many times people connect with each other – Graham will develop a Social
Network Analysis to use as the display is going around (8 months to a year following the
workshop)