“British Columbia has a very well-organised and active clinical trials ecosystem and we have a lot of award winners that come out of BC,” says CANTRAIN Chief Operating Officer Dr. Lisa Goos on the choice of Vancouver for the 2025 Clinical Trials Training Summit.

Organized by four clinical trials training programs (CTTPs: CANTRAIN, StrokeCog, CAN-TAP-TALENT, CBITN and taking place in Vancouver, BC on February 24-26, the 2025 Summit brings together a wide range of stakeholders in the clinical trials community, working together to make the field more efficient, effective, and inclusive for all. “One of the key themes of our Summit is going to be working with marginalized people and BC does a great job of honoring and engaging properly with their Indigenous communities.”

An experienced educator with advanced training in cognitive neuroscience, Dr. Goos has held senior research administration positions at Baycrest Health Sciences and The Hospital for Sick Children, has pioneered CANTRAIN’s unique approach based on cognitive adult learning principles, and previously worked as CANTRAIN’s Director of Mentorship. The 2025 Summit will feature sessions on mentorship, how to facilitate online learning for adults and important issues in participant engagement, such as working effectively with Indigenous groups and the impact of unconscious bias. “How do you properly engage with patients to do clinical trials? With Indigenous peoples? What about marginalized rural populations? How do we bring the potential of trials to more people?” asks Dr. Goos. “We have to collaborate to do that.”

Collaborating with other CTTPs, and across a range of academic research and public healthcare institutions, health non-profits, and private sector pharmaceutical partners, is key to CANTRAIN’s ethos of partnership, in order to create a more inclusive, more effective and better prepared clinical trials ecosystem for the future.

“I would love in the future for CANTRAIN to be the go-to place for clinical trials training, where you learn about whatever you need, you can get templates, tools, and resources: a place that connects everybody that’s working in the field,” says Dr. Goos, who hopes that CANTRAIN can ensure a more permanent status in future. “It’s creating a community of practice, and I’d like CANTRAIN to be the foundation of that community of practice.”