Diabetes Action Canada (DAC) has secured two additional years of funding through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) program.

This renewal supports the next phase of DAC’s national work to ensure patient-oriented research delivers measurable impact in policy, in practice, and in communities across Canada.

Three Pathways to Impact

At DAC, research is designed to move.

To people — where lived experience shapes priorities and knowledge returns to communities in ways that are usable and meaningful.

To policy — where evidence informs funding decisions, standards of care, and health system planning.

To practice — where research translates into scalable equitable models that strengthen prevention, care, and outcomes.

This means scaling what works, embedding lived experience in governance and design, and ensuring evidence moves into health systems where it can improve care.

Core Platforms and Implementation Programs

Over the next two years, DAC will continue advancing four cross-cutting platforms that anchor the Network’s national impact:

• Patient Engagement, embedding lived experience across governance, research design, implementation, and evaluation.
• Digital Health, enabling registries, data governance, and responsible AI to support real-world implementation and system improvement.
• Knowledge Mobilization, translating evidence into community-ready resources, policy guidance, and scalable models of care.
• Indigenous Health, advancing Indigenous-led priorities through sustained partnership, Indigenous governance, and action on policy and systems change.

These platforms enable implementation-focused programs addressing some of the most pressing challenges in diabetes care:

• Diabetic Retinopathy Screening, improving early detection and access to prevention.
• Lower Limb Preservation, strengthening coordinated pathways to prevent avoidable amputations.
• Older Adults with Diabetes, scaling interdisciplinary community-based care pathways to promote aging in place.
• Mental Health and Diabetes, scaling a Patient Partner co-designed model integrating structured mental health support and digital tools for young adults experiencing diabetes distress.

Together, these initiatives move prevention and complication reduction upstream, address inequities, and are designed from the outset for real-world implementation and scale.

Indigenous Health: Integrated, Indigenous-Led Partnership

Indigenous Health remains foundational to DAC’s mandate.

Through partnership with the Indigenous Diabetes Health Circle and the First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba, DAC participates in Indigenous-led policy priorities and systems change.

This work includes contributing to the National Public Policy Circle, advancing efforts to address anti-Indigenous racism in health systems, supporting engagement with Elders and community leaders, and expanding collaboration in Northern and Arctic communities.

Partnership and Leadership

This work is powered through strong and sustained partnership, research leaders advancing implementation science, Patient Partners embedded as true collaborators, and staff leaders innovating across patient engagement, knowledge mobilization, digital infrastructure, governance, and national coordination.

We are grateful to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) program. We are also grateful to our partners, the UHN Foundation, Research Manitoba, the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, and the Alberta Diabetes Institute for their continued support and collaboration.

This continued funding from CIHR sustains the backbone of the Network; protecting equitable engagement, bilingual capacity, Indigenous partnership continuity, and the paid involvement of diverse communities. These commitments cannot be built on short-term funding alone.

Looking Ahead

The next two years represent an opportunity to demonstrate how coordinated, equity-driven patient-oriented research can create lasting systems impact.

DAC will continue to strengthen partnerships, advance responsible digital innovation, and ensure research informs policy and practice in real time.

Because research only matters if it moves — and at DAC, it does.