By Michelle Read
Writer
Congratulations to Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw, recipient of the University of Ottawa Award for Excellence in Research in the Sciences stream for the academic year 2020-2021.
Dr. Grimshaw is considered a world leader in knowledge translation and implementation science, a rapidly emerging field with substantial impact on health services and policy research. He has devoted his career to bridging the gap between research and clinical care; by encouraging health care professionals to adopt evidence-based research, new research discoveries can be converted into improved population health and efficient health care delivery.
His research explores determinants of professional and health-care system performance, evaluates dissemination and implementation strategies to improve care, and builds theoretical and methodological developments. He also studies how behavioural theories from social science disciplines can be applied to health care professionals, opening doors to developing new tools to enhance cancer screening, diabetes care and treatment for cardiac arrest.
“We have created an interdisciplinary world-leading centre of excellence in implementation research at the University of Ottawa and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute,” says Dr. Grimshaw. “It is wonderful to be recognized by the University and my university colleagues with this award – it is a great honour.”
Trained as a family physician, Dr. Grimshaw subsequently undertook a PhD in health services research. He is a full professor in the Department of Medicine and is also cross-appointed to the School of Epidemiology and Public Health; he is a senior scientist in the Clinical Epidemiology Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake.
“The committee was very impressed by the dossier submitted on your behalf and wish to congratulate you on your remarkable accomplishments,” APUO President Dimitrios Karmis said in their letter to Dr. Grimshaw last month.
In January, the Government of Canada announced an investment of $1 million in COVID-19 Evidence Network to support Decision-making (COVID-END) to be co-led by Dr. Grimshaw to synthesize Canadian and global evidence and provide knowledge to federal, provincial and territorial players. In March 2019, he received the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Innovative Clinical Trial (iCT) grant in support of the Choosing Wisely Canada Implementation Research Network (CWC-IRN), a national research collaborative focused on tackling the problem of unnecessary tests and treatments in Canada. Dr. Grimshaw also leads The Ottawa Hospital Centre for Implementation Research.
In 2018, he received the CIHR 2018 Barer-Flood Prize for Health Services and Policy Research, a pre-eminent career achievement award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research honouring him for his outstanding contributions to health services and policy research in Canada. In 2015, he became Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in September 2019, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC).
“If we can learn how to more efficiently move research into practice, we will improve the lives of Canadians and contribute to the sustainability of our publicly funded health care system,” said Dr. Grimshaw at the time of his election to the RSC.
Dr. Grimshaw ranks among the world’s most influential scientific minds, putting him in the top 0.05 percent of the estimated 7.8 million full-time researchers worldwide.
The University of Ottawa Award for Excellence in Research is given by the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa and recognizes two members of the University of Ottawa’s teaching staff who have earned distinction both for themselves and the University through exceptional and important research work. One researcher is selected from the sciences and another from the humanities. The prize comes with an honorarium and a promotional campaign from the APUO.
The award will be formally presented at the Reception for Excellence in Research, organized by the Office of the President, which occurs annually each fall.
Main photo: In November 2018, Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw was honoured with the CIHR 2018 Barer-Flood Prize for Health Services and Policy Research. Photo credit: Chonglu Huang
