Equity Science Lab · Active Project
Moving commitments off the page and into the everyday practice of global health research.
This project examines how actors working across Canada's global health research ecosystem understand and operationalize their commitments to equity — and evaluates an intervention to promote evidence-informed equity practices.
The Equity Science Lab hosts the OPerationalizing Equity iN Global Health Research (OPEN GHR) project — generating the resources, tools, and knowledge needed to infuse Canada's GHR ecosystem with the capacity and leadership to advance health equity.
Recognizing that commitments to equity are widespread but inconsistently enacted, OPEN GHR asks: what does it actually take for research actors — funders, institutions, researchers — to practise equity, not just profess it?
— OPEN Global Health Research · 2025Assesses the integration of equity-centred principles and practices in funding policies for global health research — and builds the capacity to sustain them.
OPEN Global Health Research · 2025OPEN GHR pursues equity across three interconnected research objectives — each building on the last to move the field from awareness to measurable, lasting change.
We investigate how funding agencies, researchers, and institutions understand equity commitments — and the gap between what is stated and what is practised across Canada's global health research landscape.
OPEN Global Health Research · 2025We assess the KTEA course — a structured intervention designed to advance equity — measuring its capacity-building impacts and its effectiveness at translating equity intentions into evidence-informed action.
OPEN Global Health Research · 2025We convene researchers, funders, and practitioners to co-develop shared standards — what does it mean to practise equity with excellence? The result is a concrete, consensus-based framework that others can build on.
OPEN Global Health Research · 2025Funding policies are important sites for implementation of equity-centred principles and strategies — they set norms, directions, and priorities for research and serve as a primary incentive for researchers.
Recognizing massive shifts in the funding landscape after the 2008 economic recession, an equity-centred analysis of the Canadian funding landscape was conducted in 2015. That publication called upon research funding agencies, researchers, and universities to take up specific recommendations that could enable more equity-centred approaches in global health research.
In OPEN GHR, we extend that systematic equity action analysis to a broader landscape of global health research funding in Canada and among international comparators.
Funding policies as sites of change — setting norms for what research gets done, how, and for whom.
— OPEN Global Health Research · 2025Dixon, J., Plamondon, K., Elliott, S., Graham, I., Nixon, S., Curty Pereira, R., … & Nunbogu, A. (2023). Funding agencies' complicity in advancing or impeding equity in and through global health research. European Journal of Public Health, 33(Supplement_2), ckad160-1107.
Open Access Conference Proceeding →Plamondon, K., & Neufeld, V. (2022). Are we there yet? Principles in advancing equity though global public health research. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 113(2), 178–183.
Contact us for accessPlamondon, K., & Bisung, E. (2019). The CCGHR Principles for Global Health Research: Centering equity in research, knowledge translation, and practice. Social Science & Medicine 239, 112530.
Contact us for accessPlamondon, K. M., Caxaj, C. S., Graham, I. D., & Bottorff, J. L. (2019). Connecting knowledge with action for health equity: a critical interpretive synthesis of promising practices. International Journal for Equity in Health, 18, 1–10.
Open Access →Plamondon, K., Walters, D., Campbell, S., & Hatfield, J. (2017). Promoting equitable global health research: a policy analysis of the Canadian funding landscape. Health Research Policy and Systems, 15, 1–14.
Open Access →We collaborate with researchers, funding agencies, and institutions committed to advancing equity in global health research. If OPEN GHR's work resonates, we'd love to hear from you.