On June 16-17, 2020, Social Innovation Canada will host ‘Social R&D: A National Practice Gathering’ to connect and strengthen the Social R&D field in the country.

How are Canadian social innovators addressing complex challenges in this changing time? How can social R&D tools and practices strengthen their efforts?

At this time of systems disruption and reinvention, strengthening our capacities to better solve problems has never been more needed.

A national gathering

Date: June 16-17
Time: 8AM – 12:30PM PST / 11AM – 3:30PM EST
Where: Online
Get your ticket at Eventbrite

Over two half-day sessions, you will be able to:

• Connect as a community of Social R&D practitioners to learn from and with each other
• Explore how we as a field are adapting our practices to respond to this changing time
• Discover and apply new methodologies to our social impact work and opportunities for investment readiness support
• Continue to build a national narrative around the social R&D field.

What will it look like?

The two half days will weave in large group storytelling, small group interactions, and solo reflections. In each session, we will invite insights from the small groups into the larger community to allow for collective sensemaking.

The content will take place in both English and French, with live translation provided in plenary sessions. Sessions will be participatory and engaging, and we are doing some R&D on our own practices of online convening to curate this event.

Why should you join?

Does your work call you to use innovative social research practices to better understand and address social issues?

Do you draw on experimental approaches such as prototyping, human-centered design, social labs, data measurement, and ethnography in order to help solve complex social challenges?

Do you feel the urge to share and learn from other practitioners who work to create change?

Come and join us for this 2 day gathering including practitioners:

• from across the Social R&D community,
• from coast to coast to coast in Canada,
• at different stages in their practitioner journey,
• engaged in tackling a diversity of complex social challenges,
• and leveraging a variety of social R&D practices to create change.

We are a diverse community with practitioners coming from the nonprofit, charitable, corporate, and public sectors. If you’re running experiments to try to address social issues, we invite you to join us in collective inquiry.

Please share this invitation to practitioners who would benefit from this event and reach out to Annelies Tjebbes from Social Innovation Canada if there are groups or individuals that should receive a targeted invitation: annelies@socialinnovation.ca.

‘Social R&D: A National Practice Gathering’ is a partnership between Social Innovation Canada, the McConnell Foundation, and Innoweave as part of the federal government (ESDC’s) Investment Readiness Program. We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Suncor Energy Foundation and ESDC in making this conference possible.

What is Social R&D?

Social R&D is the use of experimental approaches to social impact work. It draws on techniques from Research & Development (R&D) such as prototyping, human-centered design, social labs, data measurement, and ethnography.

Community leaders and innovators are using these approaches to better understand and address social issues in their communities. We are testing new ideas, creating new evidence of what’s working and what isn’t, and sharing these approaches with each other so that we can develop together and scale.

We are a diverse community with practitioners coming from the nonprofit, charitable, corporate, and public sectors. If you’re running experiments to try to address social issues, you belong in this community.

Social R&D in Canada

Since 2015, the Social R&D Community of Practice has been advancing the adoption and visibility of Social R&D in Canada and internationally. Activities have included gatherings, skill-building masterclasses, and working with funders and policymakers to reduce barriers. This online national gathering is the next milestone to help advance and evolve this field.

Whether you are experimenting for survival or for progress, if your goal is to continuously learn in order to have greater impact, you are more than welcome to join us.