The Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans (CPCoE) was established to enable research that aims to improve the well-being of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Veterans, and their families, living with chronic pain. Funded by Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), the not-for-profit organization was established in April 2020.
At the core of all CPCoE activities is the principle of Veteran engagement. Consultation and engagement with Veterans, which includes an Advisory Council for Veterans to advise on research priorities, began prior to establishing the organization and continues as a lasting priority. This ongoing engagement helps the CPCoE to develop a deeper and more thorough understanding of the day-to-day challenges Veterans, and their families, face as a result of their experience with chronic pain. That understanding is used to shape research to ensure that it will have a genuine and practical positive impact on the well-being of Veterans in pain.
The CPCoE is committed to shortening the cycle of research-to-impact and promotes an integrated approach to Knowledge Mobilization (KM) whereby planning begins early in the research process. The CPCoE collaborates with funded researchers to execute their KM strategies to ensure research findings are accessible to, and understandable for, targeted knowledge users. The practice of KM ensures that evidence produced from our research is shared with the right people, at the right time, and in the right format.