RESEARCH IS BETTER

WHEN PEOPLE WITH SCI HELP DESIGN IT

Dennis Bourbeau believes that including people with SCI in the research enterprise, along with asking them to assist defining the problems and parameters for successful solutions, is key to achieving research and clinical breakthroughs.

“The community of people living with SCI is savvy, motivated and well-organized,” he says. 

“Funding agencies and regulatory institutions are actively seeking their input and encouraging researchers to include individuals with SCI as important stakeholders, which helps to incentivize the researchers. 

I think that researchers should see more examples of how an inclusive research model is successful and be given the expectation of adopting this research model if they plan to conduct translational work.” 

Translational work describes projects intended to actually benefit real people, rather than satisfy a scientific curiosity.