Brain Canada’s SGBA+ and EDI Action Plan

Brain Canada is committed to supporting a more inclusive way of designing and conducting research. Research approaches that consistently account for differences drive innovation and scientific rigour and reduce gender-based and ethnicity-based health inequities for previously silenced voices.  

Evidence clearly shows that being more inclusive in research environments enhances excellence, innovation, and creativity. If we want to improve the health outcomes of all people in Canada, we must include all people in Canada in our research. 

When Brain Canada engaged with prominent voices in Canada’s brain research community on this matter this year, the feedback was unequivocal: there is a distinct opportunity and responsibility for Brain Canada to assume a leadership role in this important area.  

We are actively embedding both sex and gender and equity, diversity, and inclusion considerations into everything that we do: how we operate, how we fund, who we fund, and what we fund. 

This year, Brain Canada refined its principles on SGBA+ to emphasize their importance in research hypotheses and to foster equity, diversity, and inclusion in the pool of funding recipients. 

The Brain Canada SGBA+ and EDI Action Plan identifies short-term activities to improve the quality and relevance of brain research in Canada by addressing sex and gender brain science and integrating sex and gender-based analysis plus (SGBA+) and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) efforts into all of Brain Canada’s activities. These considerations and perspectives will be integrated into Brain Canada’s operations, research funding opportunities, and knowledge mobilization (KM) programs.   

We are working to actively embed SGBA+ and EDI into our leadership and governance, human resources practices, organizational capacity, research and KM practices, and data management and communications. Our goal is to align all of Brain Canada’s strategic efforts towards full integration of these approaches to achieve improved brain health for all. In doing so, we will lead and facilitate the development of sex and gender brain science in Canada.   

Download the Brain Canada SGBA+ and EDI Action Plan 2022-25