ADDRESSING THE GROWING BURDEN OF CHRONIC DISEASE

Chronic diseases—cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, diabetes, and cancer for example—are a growing burden on our health care system. Moreover, in little more than a quarter century, they have grown to become the leading cause of death worldwide.

Children as young as five years old are now being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, young adults are suffering strokes, and the risk for asthma can begin in the womb. The physical, emotional and human toll is staggering, not just for the affected individuals but for their families, our health systems, and the economy.

A leader in advancing bench-to-bedside-to-community research, McMaster has amassed an enviable corps of outstanding scientists—in genomics, immunology, microbiology, medicine, population health, health policy, and biostatistics—who are characterizing the relationship between disease development and our fundamental biology, genetic make-up, environmental exposures, and social conditions.

Why is one child likely to develop asthma, but not another? Why are some people born with a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease? How does urban living affect our respiratory health? What role do diet, food insecurity, nutrition and exercise play? How do social inequities contribute to the development of chronic disease? How can we change unhealthy behaviours that put people at greater risk? How can we engage with a spectrum of stakeholders from patients to service providers to ensure improved public services for vulnerable and disadvantaged populations? Will higher taxes on cigarettes reduce smoking? How can we do a better job of educating patients, clinicians and policymakers? How can information and communication technologies help patients play a more active role in managing their chronic conditions in a true partnership with their healthcare teams? How can our built and social spaces be designed to be more accessible to all?

Fundamental scientists in our Metabolism and Childhood Obesity Program and Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute are making great strides in understanding the genesis of diseases, like diabetes and leukemia. Our translational scientists, like those in the Farncombe Institute, have deep experience with first-in-human studies, enabling the movement of promising new discoveries. Hospital-based institutes, like the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health and the Thrombosis and Atherosclerosis Research Institute, bridge the divide between basic discovery and clinical implementation.

Our guidelines development teams in the Cochrane Centre and the Health Information Research Unit are globally sought for their cutting-edge approaches to finding the evidence that defines best clinical practice. Health policy and community-based researchers in the Escarpment Cancer Research Institute and the McMaster Health Forum work with governments and communities to optimize timely access and delivery of health care. And, the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care is developing new strategies for the treatment and prevention of chronic pain.

Among our greatest strengths in the battle against chronic disease, is our ability to conduct population-level studies through the Population Health Research Institute and the Population Genomics Program that provide definitive proof of health outcomes. Our world-leading cohort studies are central to our understanding of the onset, progression and outcome of chronic diseases. Cohorts such as the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiological Study, and the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development birth cohort, provide priceless data to maximize prevention, treatment and management of the most challenging chronic diseases.

ADVANCED MATERIALS AND MANUFACTURING

Canada’s growth engine is under siege, battered by global competition and a decade-long struggle to ramp up productivity.

How do we mobilize our innovation and knowledge transfer to strengthen Canada’s automotive, materials and manufacturing sectors? How do we help companies maximize and continue their critical investments in the development of new products, technologies, and skills that manufacturers need to succeed? How, with geopolitical forces that are increasingly protectionist, do we ensure our ability to compete and thrive alongside other industrialized nations? How do we support Canadian exports and keep our economy growing?

Success in today’s fast-paced, consumer-driven, global environment requires fresh and ingenious approaches to manufacturing and the development of new materials. It depends on rapid technology transfer through every link of the supply chain from materials selection to product performance.

McMaster has exceptional expertise in materials and manufacturing research, and is leading the way in fields such as nanotechnology, ecohydrology and biomaterials. Indeed, McMaster was the federal government’s first choice when it decided to relocate Canada’s premier materials laboratory, CANMET-MTL, to McMaster Innovation Park, a hub for transformational research and new start-up companies.

McMaster’s Automotive Resource Centre is a state-of-the-art facility where researchers, students and industry professionals work together to address the unique challenges facing the automotive industry, including the design of battery and hybrid drive-train technologies. Through our expertise in the McMaster Manufacturing Research Institute, we have been instrumental in developing a regional supercluster on Advanced Manufacturing for Southwestern Ontario, and play an integral role in a tri-university Advanced Manufacturing Consortium that will increase Ontario’s capacity to compete globally in emerging areas such as next-generation additive manufacturing and digital components and devices.

McMaster’s physical and intellectual assets—rooted in our fundamental research expertise—in Advanced Materials and Manufacturing and the strong relationships we have developed with government and industry will play a crucial role in strengthening Canada’s capacity in this important sector.

ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY

The effects of climate change are altering the landscape as we know it. The devastating impact can be seen everywhere—on human health, ecosystems, economies, our natural resources, the ways we live and work, and, ultimately, the future of our planet.

How can we ensure the safety of the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe? How can we preserve the health of our lakes and rivers for future generations? How do we work with Indigenous communities to address issues of water security? How can big cities manage traffic congestion and urban sprawl? Can we lower the cost of environmentally friendly products to make them more widely affordable? How can we change behaviour to make communities and citizens more environmentally responsible? How can businesses stay lean in the face of the pressure to be green? How do financial markets provide the funds to ensure that green strategies are rewarded?

These are just a few of the big questions that researchers at McMaster are tackling as they focus—across sectors and disciplines, and at many levels (villages, communities, cities, and nations)—on innovative solutions to address water crises, environmental change, and develop clean technologies.

We have already made significant strides. We’ve devised strategies to protect and restore forests and wetlands, and developed new technologies to detect and reverse water contamination. Through our work in photovoltaics, we’re turning the sun’s rays into electricity and helping Canada develop a solar industry.

Since complex challenges require a multi-faceted approach, our researchers are active in collaborative networks locally, nationally, and globally that bring innovators and policymakers together to forge solutions with real impact. From the Dofasco Centre for Engineering and Public Policy to FloodNet and the Centre for Climate Change, an NSERC Canadian Strategic Network based at McMaster, to the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and the Global Water Futures Program, McMaster researchers are engaged in both the technical and policy aspects of Great Lakes cleanup, flood forecasting and management, and the global water crisis.

Interest in clean energy sources has also led to a resurgence of interest in nuclear power as a means to generate electricity, and in this, we are aided by having the most powerful research reactor at any Canadian university, where our researchers are looking at nuclear safety and radioactive waste management. The reactor also provides isotopes that allow researchers to detect key nutrients in crops—improving agricultural productivity and food security in an era of climate change.

Our unique facilities have opened up an exciting world of opportunities for our environmental researchers and are enabling them to carve out a more optimistic vision for our planet.

EQUITABLE, PROSPEROUS & SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES

The 21st century is witnessing a complex array of forces: fast-paced technological innovation, globalization, economic restructuring, social inequality, regional conflicts, and international migrations. This is creating enormous challenges for our political institutions, restructuring economic relationships, generating social upheaval, and posing urgent questions of justice and equity.

How do we foster opportunity, equitable prosperity, and well-being in the context of a globalized economy and technological change that promises to fundamentally alter our basic relationship to ourselves and to others, transform both the content, meaning, and role of work in our lives, and contribute to social and economic inequalities? How do we reconcile security, community, and identity to openness, pluralism, and global justice? How do we respond to those who have become alienated and left behind by social, economic, and cultural change, while shaping a fast-moving world to be more inclusive of all in society? How do we tackle a deteriorating public discourse, rising intolerance, and resurgent extremism and fundamentalism while building civic trust and engagement consistent with our democratic principles, promoting well-informed communication and deliberation, and restoring trust in political institutions?

We stand at a watershed. Understanding the forces at work and crafting effective responses to them requires our best theoretical, empirical, historical, and creative perspectives. Researchers at McMaster are bringing a wide range of disciplinary expertise to bear on these urgent questions.

Within our interdisciplinary Institutes and Centres, researchers are forging innovative approaches that integrate ideas from across the University. Cutting-edge methods are allowing us to exploit the ever-increasing stores of data available to us. Addressing these questions and finding solutions involves engagement with wider society at local, national, and international levels. With resources to draw on such as the Centre for Community-Engaged Narrative Arts, the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, and Peace Studies, McMaster is well positioned to play a considerable role in addressing the profound questions facing us in the 21st century.

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH

More than a century of colonial policy has resulted in Indigenous communities suffering unequal standards of living in terms of access to clean water, health services, and education compared to that of non- Indigenous Canadians. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) describes this policy, with residential schools at its core, as “cultural genocide.” Continual under funding of education, social and health services, and housing has affected every sphere of Indigenous peoples’ lives. Indigenous women, in particular, have withstood the worst of these impacts. Consequently, the federal government has acknowledged the racialized violence experienced by Indigenous women and recently launched the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

The TRC Report outlines a number of principles and Calls to Action that address the inequities that Indigenous peoples have faced in this country, historically and in the present. Indigenous communities believe that the “truth” requires genuine engagement between Canadian institutions and the Indigenous populations they often underserve before real reconciliation can begin. The TRC describes “reconciliation” as an ongoing process of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships at all levels of Canadian society, and academic research is one primary site where this must occur.

Indigenous ways of knowing are differentiated by unique, sophisticated, and complex systems of knowledge across Indigenous communities within and beyond Canada. As distinctive Indigenous theories and methodologies continue to emerge, Indigenist research is becoming increasingly global, while remaining dependent on localized, community-engaged relationships. Of primary importance is the well-being of Indigenous communities and of research that emerges from cultural knowledge and Indigenous ways of knowing. Indigenous communities’ engagement also plays a primary role in guiding the ethics, parameters, and dissemination of Indigenous-focused research.

How will research questions and objectives be informed by Indigenous communities? In what ways can land-based pedagogies and ways of knowing translate into research within an academic setting? How will academic disciplines within the University be transformed by Indigenous research?

With the establishment of the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute (MIRI) in 2016, Indigenous research at McMaster will build upon its already strong relationships with local Indigenous communities and will be better supported at the development, implementation, and reporting stages. MIRI will also allow for the facilitation of an expanded body of work carried out by research teams that will support the advancement of Indigenous community-driven research in partnership with academic researchers, while working towards a more equitable environment for Indigenous researchers. Furthermore, MIRI will encourage and support research carried out by traditional cultural practitioners in addition to academics. As Indigenous-focused research continues to emerge and re-situate the voice of Indigenous peoples and communities in research questions and outcomes, MIRI will encourage and facilitate Indigenous research both locally and globally.