1. Canadian Rural Research Network
Annual Meeting 2011
http://rural-research-network.blogspot.com
Alessandro Alasia
Network coordinator
Presented to the
Annual meeting of the network
November 2nd, 2011

2. Thank to the contributions of partner
organizations and management team

3. CRRN vision (reminder)
A vibrant, free and comprehensive on-line
community of rural research stakeholders
that facilitates links, exchanges, partnerships
and information sharing among all parties
interested in rural research by means of new
and innovative networking approaches

4. Achievements 2010/11
• Three new partners
• Five bimonthly email updates
– (summer edition covers four months)
• Two new CRRN documents posted online
• CRRN brochure (En/Fr)
• Contribution to information sharing

5. Achievements: information sharing
• About 350 posts since September 2009, about one
new item every second day

6. Achievements: information sharing
• About 25,000 visitors and 52,000 page loads since 2009

7. Achievements: information sharing
• About 500 social media subscribers, many of
which are organizations

8. Some lessons learned
(a personal view)
• Information is the most important thing.
Quality, relevance, comprehensiveness,
accessibility, timeliness of the information that is
shared on the CRRN is the most important thing
• CRRN is not a web page; it is an alternative
model for research networking (…which we still
have to fully understand)
• Freely available applications means that a lot
can be done with no financial resources; but
“freely available” does not mean “no barriers and
rapid adoption”

9. Upcoming: new version of the bimonthly
email update

10. CRRN documents in progress
• “How to” make the best use of the CRRN
resources
• An estimate of the economic value of
CRRN voluntary activities and network
November 2nd, 2011

11. Some questions for discussion
• Organization and structure: who does what? Who will do
what for 2011/12?
• How can we improve the current systems? (ideas and
possible implementations)
• What is missing?
• How can we facilitate collaborations?
• Is there a possibility to partner with other major research
networks?

12. Management committee 2011
• Patricia Macklin, Rural Development Project
Coordinator, Government of Alberta
• Molly Moshofsky, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver
• Morgan Boyco, Rural Ontario Institute
• Leanne Elliott, Canadian Model Forest Network
• Karin Trounce, Rural Development Network (RDN),
Government of Canada
Thank you
• Jeff Dixon, Queen's University, Kingston
• Jean-François Frenette, INRS, Montréal
• Geri Briggs, Canadian Alliance for Community
Service-Learning
• Erin McGuigan, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver
• David Hardie, CRRN, Ottawa
• Alessandro Alasia, Network Coordinator