The Robbins-Ollivier Award for Excellence in Equity recognizes the contributions that Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Louise Forsyth, Glenis Joyce, Audrey Kobayashi, Shree Mulay, Susan Prentice, Michèle Ollivier and Wendy Robbins have made to increase the level of equity within the Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP) and Canada’s research ecosystem more broadly, by way of their 2003 Canadian Human Rights complaints and their concerted efforts in the mediation processes, which led to both the 2006 Settlement Agreement and its addendum in 2019.
Three awards valued at $100,000 are conferred annually through a formal peer review process.
Institutions that are eligible for the CRCP are invited to nominate an eligible faculty member or a team of eligible faculty members, each year, who will lead bold and potentially game-changing initiatives that will challenge the status quo, spark change and take action to address persistent systemic barriers in the research ecosystem and academia.
The deadline to submit nominations to the 2024 award is November 5, 2024.
Winners of the 2023 award competition
A total of 13 nominations were received and the following three nominations were awarded the Robbins-Ollivier Award for Excellence in Equity.
| Inaugural awardee(s) |
Institution |
Award value |
Project title |
Project summary |
| Tameka Samuels-Jones |
York University |
$100,000 |
Cultivating Scholarly Leadership: Advancing Caribbean & Latin American Black, Latinx, and Indigenous Emerging Researchers at York University |
Leveraging this award, the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC) will lead the Black, Indigenous and Latinx Research Program (BILX-Lab) and serve as York University’s catalyst for providing Black, Latinx, and Indigenous (BILX) emerging scholars from the Caribbean, Latin America and its diaspora with the necessary tools to navigate unique academic and professional challenges. As a leading authority in EDI at York, CERLAC will strategically establish and be the incubator for five distinct, yet interconnected, research clusters with an emphasis on the following areas: —environment, violence, migration, and arts. A STEAM cluster will also address the significant underrepresentation of BILX scholars in these fields. The BILX-Lab at York University will create a structured mentorship program by pairing emerging scholars with York faculty and alumni based on their scholarship. Professional development will be fostered through a scaffolded workshop series designed to meet the specific needs of scholars, including training in research methodologies, academic writing, and career planning. The program will also include a Research Support Fund to alleviate financial barriers, promoting impactful scholarly work. Finally, the BILX-Lab will support emerging scholar-led initiatives, such as an academic journal and an international conference, providing platforms for these scholars to disseminate their research and gain leadership experience. |
| Maman Joyce Dogba |
Université Laval |
$100,000 |
Co-designing a Safe and Fulfilling Academic and Research Experience for Black Women Researchers at Université Laval |
This project ultimately aims to create community and a safe path for French-speaking Black females within Canadian Universities. The present pilot project will lay the foundation by mobilizing various stakeholders, co-designing, and testing the proposed activities and planning its scaling up. Grounded in Dogba’s lived experiences of gendered racism throughout her academic path, the project was designed as the result of over 10 years of reflexive dialogues with female Black faculty members, research professionals and students. These culturally safe and/or proven effective packages hold the promise of moving the institution beyond the status quo. This four-package project includes: i) individual or group professional coaching of participants to maximize their strengths and skills and regain control of their lives according to their personal values and goals; ii) showcasing models of Black academic journeys to increase the University’s institutional inclusiveness. This will be carried out through verbal autopsies of career paths and production of audiovisual materials; iii) collective cooking interventions to influence self-esteem and social interaction and iv) scholarships to help alleviate financial burden and stress on Black Women Researchers. An evaluation will appreciate the project efficacy, ensure sustainability, and prepare scaling up. |
| Ciann L. Wilson |
Wilfrid Laurier University |
$100,000 |
Community-Informed Best and Wise Practices for Institutional Research Ethics Reform |
This project aims to cultivate and evaluate research ethics training tools informed by the best and wise practices derived from Indigenous and Black community-created protocols for ethical research engagement from around the world. In the case study location, Wilfrid Laurier University, the project team will: 1) develop a community of practice for research, evaluation, and data management processes involving Indigenous, Black, and equity-deserving communities that meet a high ethical standard. 2) develop and deliver a workshop training series for researchers at Laurier focused on how to practically apply the key tenets and best practices of existing community-created research protocols to their research. The initiative will be evaluated for its successes and limitations for implementation into the research practices, policies, and ethical review processes at Laurier. Subsequent work will focus on sharing the outcomes of this case study implementation and scaling up this initiative for funders, such as the Tri-Agency, in informing their research ethics and evaluation policies. |