The Myriad Benefits of a National Health Research Network – Part 2

As CoVaRR-Net moves toward completion of its mandate at the end of March 2025, several key CoVaRR-Net members reflect on the multiple advantages such a network has brought to health research in Canada.

In the Fall 2024 edition of the CoVaRR-Net Quarterly, several key CoVaRR-Net members reflected on the multiple advantages such a network has brought to health research in Canada. Some important advantages discussed in “The myriad benefits of a national health research network” include:

• Bringing together multidisciplinary research expertise from across the country to respond quickly to new SARS-CoV-2 variants and other pathogens more effectively and efficiently.
• Building a network of leading Canadian scientists and encouraging them to work together to rapidly mobilize to respond to a health crisis.
• Establishing creative collaborations with Indigenous researchers and communities.
• Generating and communicating new health research findings rapidly.
• Creating new specialized capabilities through Major Initiatives such as the Biobank, the Wastewater Surveillance Research Group, CAMEO and CCABL3.

In part 2, several CoVaRR-Net members reflect on some important additional benefits:

• Training the next generation of health researchers.
• Translating health research and evidence-based knowledge to inform and influence policymakers, public health officials, and the Canadian public.

Superb training ground for young scientists

CoVaRR-Net’s structure and funding allowed for Network members to hire a total of 195 Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP). In effect, the hiring of junior researchers over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic offered a rare opportunity for so many up-and-coming scientists and also helped build a strong future for health research in Canada.

“As academics, the HQP were key contributors to the research produced by each of the Network’s Units. Our trainees had unique opportunities to work on one of the era’s most relevant research topics, understand the mechanics of a pandemic, and acquire new skill sets, which could be applied and tailored to all infectious diseases,” says Dr. Marc-André Langlois, CoVaRR-Net’s Executive Director and Professor of Molecular Virology and Intrinsic Immunity at the University of Ottawa. “HQP collaborated with senior principal investigators (PIs) and established relationships with a new generation of peers in a national network at a very early stage in their careers.”

Being trained in such a Network has been a springboard to outstanding early career positions for many CoVaRR-Net HQP. “Our first pillar research manager went from CoVaRR-Net to securing a Canada Research Chair Tier II position at the University of Saskatchewan and a former research analyst with our Pillar is now a senior scientist with the Saskatchewan Health Authority,” says Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine, Co-Lead of CoVaRR-Net’s Public Health, Health Systems and Social Policy Impact Pillar 8 and Professor at the University of Saskatchewan. Another stellar hire gained valuable experience in computational and genomic epidemiology with Pillar 6. “Our former research associate, Dr. Carmen Lia Murall, moved on to become Chief, Genomic Epidemiology at the Public Health Agency of Canada,” explains Dr. Sally Otto, Co-Lead of CoVaRR-Net’s Computational Analysis, Modelling and Evolutionary Outcomes (CAMEO) Pillar 6, Killam University Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia. “Trainees like Dr. Murall benefited from working with a diverse network of scientists, transferring skills to their current jobs and strengthening Canada’s health research infrastructure.”

Gaining training experience in multidisciplinary research collaborations

“I was involved in a large, multidisciplinary pathogenomics project as a post-doc, where I learned how to work with others and do team-based research to solve difficult problems. CoVaRR-Net offered the same kind of valuable experience to our trainees in learning how to do collaborative, interdisciplinary research,” says Dr. Fiona Brinkman, Deputy in CoVaRR-Net’s CAMEO Pillar, and Distinguished Professor in Bioinformatics and Genomics at Simon Fraser University. “They build their expertise and appreciate the value of working with each other, and also gain experience publishing and presenting internationally.”

Research trainees from CoVaRR-Net’s Indigenous Engagement, Development and Research (CIEDAR) Pillar 7 benefited from the unique experience of working with Canadian health researchers from multiple disciplines and Indigenous health researchers internationally.

“Initially, CIEDAR served as a liaison with Indigenous communities across the country. Then our role expanded to doing our own research as part of a national research network,” explains Dr. Kimberly Huyser, Lead of CoVaRR-Net’s Indigenous Engagement, Development and Research (CIEDAR) Pillar 7 and Associate Professor, University of British Columbia. “This gave our trainees the opportunity to meet and work with researchers from the Biobank, Wastewater Surveillance Research Group, and CoVaRR-Net’s diverse research Pillars. We also partnered with Indigenous health researchers in the United States and New Zealand, which allowed our trainees to learn about successful and diverse approaches to integrating Indigenous voices into health research in other countries.”

Translating health research to inform and influence public health response

CoVaRR-Net’s Executive Director and several CoVaRR-Net Units had regular interaction with public health officials and other governmental decision makers to both inform them of the latest findings in relation to COVID-19 and its variants and to better understand government information needs.

Scientists in Pillar 8, the Public Health, Health Systems and Social Policy Impacts Pillar, played a key role in this respect. “The Network enabled us to collect data, analyze and provide research insights and recommendations of value for the consideration of decision makers provincially and nationally during COVID-19,” explains Dr. Muhajarine. “For example, we formed a public health leaders’ roundtable, drawing from the members of the Urban Public Health Network, to share our research findings and to learn from public health leaders how these research findings are useful and what topics they would like further information.”

Communicating with the public through the media was also a crucial activity for many CoVaRR-Net experts during the pandemic. CoVaRR-Net served as a popular resource for journalists, as media sought a wide range of specialists to interview. As they searched for people with the right expertise to clearly explain sometimes complex concepts to the lay public, reaching out to a network like CoVaRR-Net proved efficient, as there was a central communications team able to organize interviews with a wide array of specialists.

On the flip side, the CoVaRR-Net experience taught PIs from basic and applied disciplines how to deal with media and the importance of translating complex and scientific research into lay terms for the public, as well as for other key stakeholders including public health officials, and governmental officials who may not be health research experts.

“Part of our duty, as academics, is to teach and educate students. We had a unique responsibility in the pandemic to reach out to the public and stakeholders in government and media, which enlarged our role as educators and as researchers,” says Dr. Langlois. “Learning to use language to connect and communicate effectively with these various audiences allowed us to have a greater impact in sharing new data and new knowledge about the threat of constantly evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants through different stages of the pandemic.”

The improved ability of researchers in Canada to communicate complex health topics in lay terms will undoubtedly continue to have a positive impact on public health in the future.