Kate Humpage has a job to get long-winded academics talking to plain-speaking guys in overalls in rural Canada.
The job got easier with last month’s announcement from Ottawa that it was providing $250,000 over the next three years to develop a communication system.
Humpage, who is the manager of rural research and analysis with the federal Rural Secretariat, will be working on the rural research network.
“The network is the mechanism by which people come together to talk about issues,” she said.
The network is holding its first national meeting in Twillingate, Nfld., in October along with its co-ordinating body, the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation. They will look at how research can be applied for practical solutions. Humpage said those at the meeting will ask for research proposals “to get the top-of-the-mind issues.” Almost any issue is relevant to life in rural Canada, she said, and the hope is that the academics from different areas of study will collaborate for an applied research project.
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The network is just starting to get the word out, she said. Likely it will develop “some sort of web-based, chat line type” of communication so farmers and rural citizens can interact with those researching their common areas of interest.
