Program and Year: 2021 – Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF)
Project Title: The Centre for Access to Information and Justice, the Access Lab, and Transparency in the Digital Age
Faculty: Department of Criminal Justice, Faculty of Arts, The University of Winnipeg
Overview:
The Centre for Access to Information and Justice (CAIJ) investigates government practices using freedom of information, computational approaches, and other critical research methods to raise questions about political power as well as economic and social inequality.
What is your research program and what would you like Manitobans to know about your research?
The CAIJ investigates government practices, tracks general trends in Freedom of Information and access to justice, as well as charts national and regional variations in these practices. The CAIJ advances theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented studies of Freedom of Information and access to justice in the form of workshops, reports, articles, and books produced by its members. Anyone can use freedom of information requests to find out what governments are doing. Connect with the Opens in new windowCAIJ to learn more and collaborate.
What is your project working to achieve? What will the impacts/benefits of this research be to Manitoba/Canada?
The CAIJ’s goals include advancing knowledge of Freedom of Information and access to justice practices through multi-disciplinary and critical collaborative research projects, serving as a welcoming context for students and visiting scholars working in the areas of Freedom of Information and access to justice, and engaging in outreach with a community and public interest focus. Beyond publishing academic works, CAIJ wants to push for government transparency and accountability, as well as social change and social justice. We want to connect with communities that may have never heard of access to information before, so it is important to use different approaches and creations. Doing this kind of creative and community-based work will help to generate new attention to the overlap between movements for social, racial, economic and environmental justice and the focus on information justice central to the CAIJ.
What is your vision for this research centre/infrastructure?
Hopefully the CAIJ Access Lab will be a space that can bridge divides between academic and community circles to foster research for social change. With this funding CAIJ will have infrastructure that graduate and undergraduate honours students can use to train to conduct critical, investigative research. Community members can also connect to CAIJ members and access the research space. The use of computer science skills and the realization of how powerful data and information can be is changing the strategies and tactics of social movements and community groups. Activists are also turning to mapping and other kinds of data visualization to enhance their communications and knowledge mobilization.
How will the funds you received from RM advance this research program/field?
This funding will greatly enhance the ability of CAIJ to carry out its research agenda and make academic contributions in the years ahead. With this funding CAIJ will also provide research and training opportunities for graduate and graduate honours students in the social sciences at The University of Winnipeg and beyond.