About Us

The origins of the Community Engagement and Research Centre (CERC) date back to to 2003, when the idea was first proposed to develop a unit - then known as the Community Research Unit - within the University of Regina Faculty of Arts that would serve as a bridge to connect the research needs of community organizations with the research interests and capacities of faculty members and students. The (former) Community Research Unit was formally established as a faculty-based research centre in 2010. In July 2020, the unit was renamed the Community Engagement and Research Centre in order to better reflect our mandate and programming.

Our Mission

The mission of the Community Engagement and Research Centre is to enable the Faculty of Arts to serve as a resource for community groups, formal and informal, and to be enriched in turn by our relationships with those communities. Through this engagement, the Faculty of Arts and the University of Regina enhances its capacity to produce high quality and relevant knowledge, and in turn increases its ability to serve the wider community and province. 

Our Mandate

The Community Engagement and Research Centre will function collaboratively as a partnership between community groups and university faculty and students. Our mandate is to provide independent, participatory research support in response to needs expressed by communities with a view toward building capacity and enhancing our quality of life.

Our Goals: The Community Engagement and Research Centre aspires to:

1. Serve the various research and research-related needs and/or program development needs of groups within the broader community;
2. Build connections and relationships between and among members of the University and community;
3. Acknowledge and utilize the experiential knowledge of communities and the technical knowledge of the University, and to promote community-engaged scholarship in our social and academic environments;
4. Actively pursue the two-way transfer of learning between the community and the University to assist in building capacity and knowledge in both environments;
5. Link the analyses of problems to solutions in order to help facilitate healthy social change for those who lack power and opportunities in our communities;
6. Act as a clearinghouse for research partnerships, skill sets, and research results;
7. Encourage and support service-learning and community engagement opportunities in the Faculty of Arts;
8. Actively mentor students and instill a responsibility for community engagement;
9. Promote institutional change that supports community engagement.