From April 2022 to August 2024, I worked at the Dr. Gilles Arcand Centre for Health Equity at NOSM University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. During that time, the research Centre received a large donation from the Temerty Foundation and was renamed from the Centre for Social Accountability to the Dr. Gilles Arcand Centre for Health Equity.
Although I left my position at the centre to pursue another opportunity, I remain a co-investigator on a successful SSHRC Partnership Grant project, which focuses on socially accountable research (a press release is available here).
As part of this effort, I was the lead author on two important book chapters on socially accountable research in the field-defining volume Social Accountability of Medical Schools: Empowering the Future of Medical Education and Healthcare, edited by Mohamed Elhassan Abdalla, Mohamed Hassan Taha, and Charles Boelen. Details on the chapters are available below, and the book was launched in July 2025 at a TUFH event.
The SSHRC Partnership Grant project – which I served as the lead grant writer on, in the second stage – is called “Community-engaged Research in Education, Advocacy, and system Transformation for advancing health Equity (CREATE).” During its first year, I was a training, ADEI, and research lead on the project, working alongside a team of international medical education researchers and partners, and since then I have remained engaged on a few projects under the grant.
My work with the Centre was on an interdisciplinary team of physician researchers, research scientists, and scholars in health care education who are interested in both socially accountable research and research into social accountability. Within and beyond the context of medical education and health care, my work with the Centre was focused on developing a distinctive theoretical and critical approach to social accountability. Specifically, I looked at how violence and conspiratorial thinking bear upon issues of public health, from the complexities of the World Health Organization’s definition of violence to the severe and negative effects that conspiracy theories continue to have on public health.
I was also involved in supporting the AFMC Standing Committee on Social Accountability for two years in a row at the ICAM Conferences in Quebec City (2023) and Vancouver (2024).
My critical work on Social Accountability is best expressed in the invited, accredited CEPD session, “What is Social Accountability? Philosophical and Critical Considerations” Human Sciences Seminar Series. NOSM University, Thunder Bay. Thursday January 18th 2024. Recording available here.
Towards Unity for Health: Social Accountability Fellowship, Symposium Series, Policy Dossier, and the ISAT 2.0
In addition to this project, I also directed and developed an international Fellowship in Social Accountability for Deans of medical schools around the world, co-hosted between NOSM U, TUFH, and the University of Limerick. This work was supported by the International Social Accountability Steering Committee (ISAASC), and the groundwork for the fellowship curriculum was laid during my time coordinating its 2023 symposium series.
The results of the 2023-2024 fellowship were then published as a policy dosser called “Institutional Journeys toward Social Accountability in Medical and Allied Health Institutions: From Policy Influence to Accreditation Transformation,” special issue of the Social Innovations Journal 26 (2024).
In my editor’s introduction to the issue, “Institutional Social Accountability from Medical Education to Accreditation and Public Policy,” I expand on my work on Social Accountability and show how it is rooted in social bonds of public trust and a critical vision of the relationship between institutions and society.
In early 2024, I also served as the update editor of the Institutional Self-Assessment Social Accountability Tool (ISAT) 2.0. The Network: Towards Unity for Health (TUFH), an official non-state actor of the World Health Organization (WHO). (PDF).
This Institutional Self-Assessment Social Accountability Tool (ISAT) assists institutions to become more Socially Accountable to the public and people they serve. It is an unbiased, objective, numbers-based rating system to assess the globe’s best-known and some lesser known, but worthy, health institutions.
Recent and Forthcoming Publications on Social Accountability in Medical Education
“Empowering Faculty in Socially Accountable Medical Education,” Maxwell Kennel, Ghislaine Attema, Jyotsna Rimal, Prattama Santoso Utomo, and Nicholas Torres. Forthcoming in Social Accountability of Medical Schools: Empowering the Future of Medical Education and Healthcare. Edited by Mohamed Elhassan Abdalla, Mohamed Hassan Taha, and Charles Boelen (Springer, forthcoming 2025). https://link.springer.com/book/9783031944345
“Socially Accountable Research,” Maxwell Kennel, Kerri Delaney, Jessica Jurgutis, Joseph LeBlanc, Sarah Larkins, Karen Johnston, Erin Cameron. Forthcoming in Social Accountability of Medical Schools: Empowering the Future of Medical Education and Healthcare. Edited by Mohamed Elhassan Abdalla, Mohamed Hassan Taha, and Charles Boelen (Springer, forthcoming 2025). DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-94435-2_12 https://link.springer.com/book/9783031944345
Larche CL, Kennel M, Tackett S, Marsh DC, Cameron E. “Enhancing Social Accountability in Medical Education and Accreditation: A Meeting Report.” Advances in Medical Education Practice. 2025;16:471-476. https://doi.org/10.2147/AMEP.S508928
“Integrating Indigenous data sovereignty principles into learning health systems: Framework analysis and survey of Canadian practice-based research and learning networks,” Brianne Wood, Barbara Zelek, Roya Daneshemand, Maxwell Kennel, Sophia Myles, Robyn O’Loughlin, Darrel Manitowabi. Under review.
Maxwell Kennel*, Kerri Z. Delaney*, Jennifer Dumond, Jessica Jurgutis, Alex Anawati, Joseph LeBlanc, David Marsh, Erin Cameron (*co-first-authors), “Characterising socially accountable research: a scoping review protocol paper.” BMJ Open, 15(7) (2025), e093101. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-093101 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40615139/
Dr. Maxwell Kennel 