Anahita Baregheh, Research Team Director for the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada (“as told to” our WINCan website editor)
Editor: Anahita, how did you first get involved with WINCan’s research endeavors
Anahita: In 2018, I was invited to join the Skills Catalyst Ontario project led by Dr. Thomas Carey and Dr. Andrew Maxwell (Bergeron Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship with the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University. The workplace partners were prominent innovation leaders from organizations in Canada’s corporate sector (IBM Canada, Hatch Engineering and Shopify Inc.) and public sector (Bank of Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs).
This prototype Academic-Workplace collaboration hosted at York – which also included higher education innovation leaders from three other Ontario universities and three colleges – built on previous WINCan proof-of-concept studies with workplaces and higher education institutions in B.C. [Carey et al, 2019].
Editor: What brought you to their attention?
Anahita: That’s actually a funny story. Tom had been using some of my earlier research work from the U.K. on proposing a multidisciplinary definition of innovation and innovation in SMEs from the Food Sector. Not realizing that I had moved to Canada, when Tom tracked me down to catch up on that work he was delighted to discover that I was now an Associate Professor at Nipissing University in North Bay…and even more pleased that my home is actually in the GTA! In turn, I was delighted to see my research put to use and to be able to contribute to extending it.
Editor: Wow, that is a great story. And from there…?
Anahita: When we incorporated a not-for-profit as the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada in 2019, I became Research Team Coordinator and later became Research Team Director in 2020.
Editor: WINCan’s mission is to help academic and workplace partners achieve their goals in workplace innovation. That places a strong focus on applied problems and working with the “problem owners”. So where does research fit in, in the scholarly sense of advancing the general body of knowledge?
Anahita: You’re on-point in identifying a workplace challenge as our starting point– whether in Higher Ed’s “workplace for learning” to prepare graduates for their future workplaces or in our workplace partners’ organization. As we help our partners to address those challenges based on research driven insights, we are always looking for ways to generalize those solutions, including understanding how particular contextual factors and issues helped shape the solutions and how other organizations can re-use, adapt and extend those results from our applied research and innovation projects.
The applied problems are always the drivers and eventual scholarly contributions are a welcome additional outcome. As you know, not all scholarly activity follows this flow (Ed.: she says with a smile).
Editor: So, what does that look like in practice?
Anahita: Early plans and ongoing results from the WINCan Research team are first published online as works-in-progress on the WINCan website or other online media (e.g., Academica Forum and Inside Higher Ed).
We also share emerging insights in conference presentations, for example:
Carey, T., Pardy, L., Arnold, C., Wiggers, R. and T. Penny Light (2017). Challenges in Practitioner Research on Developing Graduate Capability for Emerging Knowledge Practices. Symposium at the Canadian Society for Studies in Higher Education. Toronto ON June 2017.
Carey, T. (2017). Innovation Capability as a Graduate Attribute for Liberal Arts Programs Annual Conference of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, San Francisco CA, January 2017.
Nobis, F., Stevenson, M., McDonald, S. and T. Carey (2021). Developing Graduates’ Capability for Innovation in the Workplace. Presentation at Warwick University 5th Annual Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference, Coventry UK. March 2021.
Nobis, F., Stevenson, M. and T. Carey (2021). Understanding Workplace Innovation as Transformative Learning. Presentation at Higher Education Innovation Summit, University of Minnesota, Rochester MN June 2021.
Rueb, A., Howard, E. and T. Carey (2021). Innovation Capability: for the Workplace and Beyond. Presentation at Colleges and Institutes Canada Annual Conference, April 2021.
while they are in parallel being applied and shared by partners in professional reports, such as:
Carey, T. and D. Wheeler (2020). Green Paper on Academic Strategy. Brampton University, ON Canada April 2020. https://www.bramptonu.ca/
Carey, T. and Ferreras, F. (2021). Polytechnic Education: Enduring Purpose and Practice Futures, chapter to appear in Polytechnic Education: a Vision for Ontario (Whittaker, C. and Nieman, S., eds) p. 80-102. Humber Press Online.
Finally, the cumulative results can then be submitted as scholarly journal articles and book chapters:
Carey, T., Dastur, F. & Karaush, I. (2019). Workplace Innovations and Practice Futures. Chapter 20 in Higgs, J., Cork, S. & Horsfall, D. (Eds) Challenging Future Practice Possibilities. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill-Sense Publishers 2019.
Baregheh. A, Carey T. and G. O’Connor (2021). Beyond the Champion – Governance and Management of Strategic Innovation in Higher Education Teaching and Learning. Chapter to appear in Governance and Management in Higher Education: International Perspectives on Strategic Planning. Sengupta, E. and P. Blessinger (eds), a volume in the series Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning. Emerald Publishing Group.
Editor: Readers and Partners can track this sequential flow in each WINCan project – from gleam-in-the-eye ideas, through iterative prototypes and pivots, to application, understanding and insights – on our WINCan Projects page 😊.
Anahita Baregheh is an Associate Professor at Nipissing University’s School of Business and Research Director for the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada.