By David Phipps York U/Research Impact Canada (RIC)
I was in Chile for 6 days facilitating 3 workshops, making 6 presentations, and attending 12 meetings. All while the work of York University and RIC didn’t stop. I was very glad to be home on Wednesday, September 2.
The relationship with Chile started in 2023 when Francisca Vivianne Reyes Mendy from Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the Chilean policy engagement network, Vincula, contacted me to explore mutual learning between Vincula and RIC. Vincula joined the quarterly meetings of a network of international impact networks we now call the International Research Impact Consortium.
Now, in 2026, Vincula partnered with the BiCI Alliance led by University of Los Andes and the Canadian Embassy in Chile to bring me to Santiago for 6 days of sharing information and giving them insight into impact in different countries.
Bottom line: Chile is interested in helping research make a positive contribution to Chile’s economy and society but they will do it in a way that learns from other countries but reflects the unique Chilean needs and assets.
Chile can learn from Canada
- Narrative CVs. We haven’t fully adopted narrative CVs and we are still learning how to create and review them, but I feel they will be transformational for impact since it will surface efforts for engagement, knowledge mobilization, commercialization, EDIA and other professional contributions that researchers make but which do not currently get recognized.
- Institutional supports across knowledge mobilization processes
Canada can learn from Chile
- Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) created the regional nodes, 14 regional ANID offices to: 1) understand needs of local industry, communities and governments; 2) fund research to meet those needs; and, 3) broker research relationships between regions. And the Nodes are based on the Co-produced Pathway to Impact that we developed and is used in Canada.
- In May, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council released their Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation Strategy, which called for research to contribute to Chilean development.
All of that without speaking Spanish! I certainly hope to continue the dialogue on research impact between Canada and Chile. Muchas gracias amigos!
Please see a short video on LinkedIn summarizing the visit here: https://lnkd.in/p/guZq2kxG