One of only 11 recipients of the highly-competitive Canada-UK Development Award (CDA), Dr. Doris Howell will now establish collaborative projects between Canada and the UK. Only in its second year, the Development Award has attracted wide-spread attention from academic, industrial science and innovation experts. Winners were selected throughout the UK and Canada and Dr. Howell, an associate professor at the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, was the only recipient from Toronto.
“Doris has contributed extensively to cancer care research and I’m looking forward to see her expertise at work with these upcoming UK projects,” says Linda McGillis Hall, interim dean of Bloomberg Nursing.
Created by the UK Science and Innovation Network (SIN), this Development Award advances long-term projects that deliver concrete outcomes, develop institutional links and work on international research priorities. The ultimate goal of the Development Award is to facilitate face-to-face meetings and deliver initial outcomes within a year.
Collaborating with Dr. Jessica Corner, the dean of school of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton in England, Dr. Howell and Dr. Corner will work toward creating an international research agenda focused on disease self-management in cancer. Researchers in the UK are studying self-management and survivorship that would benefit emerging research in Canada with the additional long-term goal of engaging the United States, Australia and other countries looking to partake in this collaborative effort and a shared research agenda.
UK engagement in Canada is guided by the UK-Canada Joint Declaration, endorsed by Prime Ministers Cameron and Harper in September 2011. The University of Toronto and the University of Southampton will spend the next couple of years, advancing the science of self-management needs and effective programs and interventions targeted to cancer survivors. Bringing together this international community of researchers will impact and improve a patients’ experience of cancer through this work.