From October 19th to the 22nd, BCCDC held its eighth annual Research Week, with four days of activities including informational and fun workshops and a variety of research presentations, and about 200 people in attendance through the week. The BCCDC Foundation both sponsors and helps coordinate the Research Week initiative and this week was another great success!
The theme was ‘The Evolution of Public Health’ and we had a very evolutionary series of activities. Our workshops ranged from computer tips and tricks, to healthy workplace activities such as snacks and desk yoga. Our symposia included two amazing keynotes that truly spoke to the array of public health research: from BCCDC we had Dr David Patrick who presented “UBC Complex Chronic Disease Study: How Do You Research a Syndrome?” and Dr Trevor Bedford joined us from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle Washington to bring us his work on “Real-time tracking of virus evolution”.
We also had ten short talks that varied from reducing pain during vaccine injections, to developing best practices for engaging peers in harm reduction, to climate change, drinking water and acute gastrointestinal illness, among other interesting snapshots of research activities – a truly amazing showcase of the diversity of work that occurs at BCCDC.
Throughout the week, we had more than 40 posters displayed around the building for everyone to view. As a unique and fun activity, we collected feedback throughout the week by asking staff to answer “how would you ‘evolve’ our Centre?” and put their ideas in an envelope, some of which were shared at the end of the symposia and hopefully some will become reality!
At the end of the week, the BCCDC Foundation hosted our second annual reception in celebration of Research Week, where we welcomed guests from BCCDC to join external partners for some food, drinks and networking. This year, the reception was sponsored by BCCDC/PHSA, demonstrating our genuinely collaborative and reciprocal relationship. Our other generous sponsors included The Lazy Gourmet, New Zealand Wine, and Blackcomb Aviation. We would like to thank all our sponsors and our guests who joined us from many different organizations!
A huge thank-you to the Research Week organizing committee, and to everyone who came out to Research Week 2015 and made the week a great success, an engaging experience and something to beat for 2016.
A final note from Sarah Henderson and Will Hsiao, Research Week Committee Co-Chairs, who said they are “really honoured to have been a part of organizing our last three Research Weeks at BCCDC, which have showcased, and brought together, the great work that is done here. We all know that BCCDC carries out service provision to the highest standard, and this best practice has only evolved through the continual feedback of research”!
