Our Story
Our story began with the need to access insights and knowledge from our community. As students and researchers, we have access to the academic literature we need to develop top-tier research projects.
What is the problem?
Students and researchers across Canada join universities to build the skills they need to improve their local communities and society as a whole, but their knowledge needs extend beyond textbooks and research papers. They need easy access to local data and knowledge that represents our communities' distinct needs and priorities. This would help them focus on the most urgent problems through their research work and professional development. Unfortunately, local data and knowledge is absent from university resources and accessing it is quite a challenge.
Our Solution
ScienceReach solves this disconnect. We have created a set of templates and guidelines that community organizations can use to compile and publish local knowledge and data (check out our sample publication). These concise, 4-page publications offer an in-depth look at a specific community issue, like high student dropout rates, the impacted group, and the community organization's programs to tackle these issues.
Once these publications pass through ScienceReach's validation and publishing process, they are made easily searchable and accessible to anyone who is interested. Researchers, students, and policymakers can then readily find this localized knowledge in a single database, which they can utilize for their research and projects.
The Vital Role of Community Organizations:
Our team recognized this need and identified a valuable source of local knowledge: community organizations. These organizations, such as NGOs, school boards, local associations, etc., have deep ties with the communities they serve. They're at the forefront, witnessing the challenges their communities face firsthand. What's missing is the infrastructure to help these community organizations share their knowledge, and a system that allows academics and researchers to access this vital information easily.
