Webinars

Research Nova Scotia provides opportunities to help enhance grantsmanship skills, facilitate connections, improve communications skills, and more.

Register and learn more about our upcoming webinars below.

INFORMING PREVENTION OF MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS IN THE POPULATION: THE ROLE OF BIG DATA ANALYTICS

As Nova Scotia moves toward a universal mental health system, understanding the prevalence and burden of mental health issues on the broader population will be key to developing and implementing preventative and responsive mental health services. In this session, Dr. Wang discusses how the disease burden of mental health has evolved over the last 20 years, what policymakers can learn from how the disease burden of physical diseases has changed, how data can be used to predict mental health issues in the population, and how decisionmakers can make use of that data in both prevention strategies and health human resource planning.

Focused REsearch Investments webinar

Learn more about Focused Research Investments (FRI) Expressions of Interest (EOI). Research Nova Scotia CEO, Stefan Leslie, provides an overview of the initiative and answers questions from the research community. The FRI Initiative is created to tackle the salient issues of our time using a mission-oriented approach while providing the funding and resources required to meet specific societal outcomes.

Job burnout: The epidemic following the pandemic

Job burnout is a serious, long-term syndrome of ill-being. Studies show that burnout brings with it a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, hospitalization, and mortality before the age of 45, motor vehicle accidents and even suicide. While job burnout was a threat to public wellness before COVID, the strains of work and family life during the pandemic have left burnout at epidemic levels. In health care, for example, burnout symptoms increased around 50% from pre- to post-COVID, contributing to staffing crises that left some Nova Scotian hospitals with nurse vacancy rates up to 30% last year. While COVID put a spotlight on the international burnout epidemic, it has correspondingly escalated research and interventions that work—many focused on supportive leadership.

What are the most common preventable causes of job burnout? What does the evidence say about factors that can reduce it? Why is leadership critical? How can a burned out workforce rebound to a healthy and thriving workforce?

Being young & homeless

Nova Scotia is experiencing an era of unprecedented change. Policymakers are being continually challenged to act responsively and proactively to issues stemming from affordability, population growth, and inflation. One of the biggest and most public-facing challenges is homelessness.

In this session, Dr. Karabanow will shed light on the plight of young people caught up in the cycle of homelessness and marginalization. He will highlight lessons learned from over twenty years of study to inform our current homelessness and housing crisis and the policies and programs young people need to avoid the streets or to move from homelessness to housing.

Child poverty: How behavioural science can help improve uptake of social programming

Behavioural science combines insights from psychology, economics, sociology, implementation science, and a range of other disciplines. It’s the study of understanding, influencing, and predicting human behavior and has led to an understanding that, in particular contexts, people systematically deviate from rational decisions. Behavioural science has been shown to contribute greatly to evidence-based policy approaches that improve government services throughout the world.

In this session, Mike and Sydney discussed how behavioural science research can support government problem solving and its particular application to programming supporting people experiencing poverty. Finally, they present a case study of what happened when partners from child poverty initiatives across Nova Scotia and the Department of Community Services were brought together to conduct research on the uptake of social programming targeting low-income children & families.

Peer Review Observer Program

The Peer Review Observer Program is a session which gives students and early career researchers the opportunity to attend a review committee meeting to learn more about the process and what reviewers expect in a research funding application.

How vulnerable is coastal Nova Scotia with a changing climate?

Over the last year, our region has experienced unprecedented climate-related events including a polar vortex, flooding, hurricanes, and wildfires. With ongoing sea-level rise, our province is at an increased risk of coastal flooding and erosion from any given storm. How can Nova Scotia communities better prepare for future climate events? What planning resources can be provided to municipalities?

In this session, Dr. Webster discusses new technologies Nova Scotia is leveraging to map vulnerability and how we can ensure a more resilient Nova Scotia in the future.

Understanding how primary care is changing in Canada

Across Canada, many people are struggling to find a regular place for primary care and to access care where and when they need it. Policymakers are confronting the fact that after decades of reforms, primary care service volume is falling and inequities are widening. There are more primary care physicians than ever before, but at the same time they are reporting overwork and exhaustion.

Join us as we talk primary care access and changing physician practice patterns with Dr. Ruth Lavergne, Associate Professor in Dalhousie’s Department of Family Medicine and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Primary care. In this session, Dr. Lavergne will explore factors that may be driving changes and different approaches that can help ensure equitable access to quality primary care in Canada.

managing the grid: the future of renewable energy storage

With Nova Scotia committed to having 80% of our electricity needs supplied by renewable energy by 2030, there is a pressing challenge to identify energy-storage technologies to meet growing demand. There are many different forms of energy-storage technologies that can store energy on a variety of timescales. While these technologies are still at a relatively early stage of deployment in Canada, they are essential to making use of variable renewable energy sources and in turn, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

What kinds of energy storage technologies are available? What are their potential uses in Nova Scotia? Join Research over Coffee as we explore these questions with Dr. Wayne Groszko, Research Scientist at Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC).

Research Grant Applications: Unwritten Rules & Best Practices from University Affairs’ Ask Dr. Editor

Location: Virtual; RSVP Required

What are the characteristics of a strong, feasible grant application? What grantwriting strategies can you use to show a review committee that your project is worth funding? In this presentation, Dr. Letitia Henville – the author of the monthly advice column Ask Dr. Editor–will share evidence-based best practices for research grant proposals. She’ll also show you the behind-the-scenes of how she sets up a grant application for success before the writing even starts.

Considerations for Effective Integration of Sex and Gender in Research

Location: Virtual; RSVP Required

Research Nova Scotia presents an opportunity for researchers to learn how to build more equitable, reflective, and inclusive research plans with respect to gender and sex.

Physical activity as preventative medicine

With some of the highest rates of chronic disease in the country and a primary care system struggling to support our growing population, its particularly important for Nova Scotians to utilize all tools at our disposal to support population health. Numerous strategies and frameworks exist but we still struggle to embed physical activity in our health culture and to systematically link individuals with physical activity and healthy lifestyle programs and professionals. A lot of work has been done at all levels of government to support development of age-appropriate, ability-appropriate exercise as preventative medicine, but we still have a long way to go.

We sit down with Dr. Jonathon Fowles, a leading researcher in the role of physical activity in preventative health as we talk about what’s working here in Nova Scotia and the challenges we need to overcome to fully embrace the preventative powers of exercise.