First MUSE Meet-up in Montréal

What are the partnerships and factors that lead to healthy changes in city populations? That was one of the key questions posed for discussion during the first MUSE Team members meeting in Montréal on November 8, 2017.

MUSE Team members gathered at the Direction régionale de santé publique de Montréal to identify key challenges and research questions to explore as the program moves forward. More than 40 researchers, knowledge users, and collaborators were in attendance.

“The November MUSE Meet-up was the first time lead researchers, co-researchers, knowledge users, and collaborators convened to discuss current and future plans for the projects,” said principal investigator Nazeem Muhajarine. “As the projects move forward, I look forward to seeing how the connections we’ve established will grow to produce insightful and relevant outcomes.”

Lise Gauvin added: “We worked especially hard to reach out to colleagues in both official languages and were delighted to see that everyone delved enthusiastically into the exercise of cross-language knowledge transfer and exchange.“

The MUSE team debated key aspects of the program and projects, including what factors are necessary in order for multisectoral partnerships (MPs) and interventions to create change in the selected four cities (Vancouver, Saskatoon, Toronto, Montréal), such as scientific evidence, leadership, strength of partnerships and time. The group also deliberated about how to study the way partners manage respectives mandates, structures, priorities, and agendas. Equity became another topic of discussion, as to how it should be integrated throughout the course of an intervention or partnership.

“It was a pleasure meeting everyone, putting faces to so many names and just seeing the scale and diversity of the projects,” said collaborator Charles Plante. “This is an immense project with immense potential, and I look forward to what we’ll accomplish together.”

We thank the Montréal team (Lise Gauvin, Marie-France Raynault, Émilie Renahy and Isabelle Thérien) for organizing and the Direction régionale de santé publique de Montréal for hosting this important conference as we launch into the rest of the project.

We will continue to update the MUSE Collaboratory website and send out updates as our team works to answer some of these questions raised at our recent meeting.

Watch videos and Power Point, now available below both in French and English!