The 2024 Research Infosource Rankings have named Trent University as a Top 50 research university in Canada for more than a decade. This year, the University excelled in one particular category, earning a spot in the Winners Circle for Not-for-Profit Research Income Growth. With a history of strong community research collaboration, Trent University has grown its research income dedicated to not-for-profit initiatives, which now amounts to nearly half of its total research income.

Trent University professor Dr. Bharati Sethi, the Canada Research Chair in Care Work, Ethnicity, Race and Aging, is leading one such project that demonstrates both Trent’s strength in this area, and the tangible goals and results from these types of studies.

Professor Sethi is working alongside Peterborough’s Workforce Development Board (WDB) on a study to understand the experiences of racialized internationally educated nurses (IENs) in non-metropolitan Ontario communities.

By focusing on communities where healthcare shortages are often more pronounced, this research can help identify barriers to integration, retention, and support for IENs to work in rural and underserved regions.

Prof. Sethi secured a $24,986 Partnership Engage Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council this year and will lean on the connections and expertise of the WDB to recruit study participants, offer guidance, local labour market knowledge, and help share research findings. The learnings from this project could provide meaningful insights that could influence changes to policies, procedures, training, and other resources that could ultimately enhance the capacity and care of healthcare systems in rural communities.

Many more cooperative projects like this are taking place at Trent University, including in the School of the Environment, the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, and Department of Sociology, to name a few. The recognition from Research Infosource and the real-world impact as demonstrated by Prof. Sethi’s work further solidifies the University’s position as a leader in innovative, impactful research.