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Call for Proposals: Advancing People-Centred Justice in Canada

Deadline to submit proposals: 1 October 2025

The National Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters (NAC) is pleased to announce that it will be hosting its first national conference on access to justice research, entitled:

Advancing People-Centred Justice in Canada: Data Sharing and Knowledge Building.

We invite proposals from research, policy, program, and practitioner contexts across the justice sector for presentations or other forms of participation/engagement on themes of data and/or knowledge relating to access to justice and people-centred justice.

Proposal Themes

As a guide for proposals, we encourage engagement with one or more of the following (or similar) themes:

  1. Data mapping and exploring:
    Current efforts to map and/or explore internal organizational data or other potential data sources for research, evaluation, or program development.

  2. Data access and sharing:
    Current efforts to access data and/or to share available data.

  3. Data and knowledge needs/gaps:
    Identification of key needs or gaps in data and knowledge.

  4. New knowledge (new data analysis):
    In-progress or completed data analysis and/or knowledge-building research on people-centred access to justice initiatives.

  5. Understanding People-Centred Justice:
    Exploring the idea/goal or methods of people-centred justice, as informed by theoretical analysis and/or practical activities.

  6. Priority justice-seekers:
    Focusing on advancing people-centred justice and access to justice for Indigenous justice-seekers and other disadvantaged communities of justice-seekers.

Types of Participation

Proposals may include a range of participation/engagement types:

  • Individual or joint presentations

  • Panel presentations (multiple presenters on a unified theme)

  • Workshops

  • Roundtables

Proposals can cover completed or ongoing projects or research.

Conference Goals

The conference will:

  • Break down siloes in the justice system and build connections among scholars, researchers, non-profit organizations, practitioners, and other access to justice stakeholders across Canada.

  • Build momentum for more research in Canada and encourage collaboration for the future.

  • Identify concrete actions that could be taken in the short term by the federal and provincial governments or other justice-sector participants.

  • Explore how data can be used to improve people-centred justice. Decision makers and policy makers will be invited to attend to hear presentations and connect with presenters. Most presentations will be held in person to maximize contact and networking.

  • Facilitate the development of scholarly and other research on the themes of access to justice and people-centred justice.

Funding Support

In advance of the conference, NAC is seeking various types of funding with the aim of offering financial support for the following (to be confirmed):

  1. Travel support funding for participants who express a need to attend in person (priority to graduate students and stakeholders from non-profits/community organizations who apply by January 16, 2026)

  2. Simultaneous and documentary English/French translation to support bilingual proceedings

  3. Guidance and support for research dissemination through blog posts, social media channels, and scholarly journals

Submission Details

 

Posted: 2 September 2025