Reimagining Research
Are you ready to radically transform your research practice?
April 16 - May 15, 2026
Cohort 1: Every Thursday 4pm-6pm Pacific Time
Cohort 2: Every Friday 9am-11am Pacific Time
If you’re tired of the status quo and craving a more meaningful way to engage with the world, this space is for you.
Maybe…there’s a voice inside you that knows there’s another way to do research. That feels the discomfort of extractive, transactional methods. That experiences the pressure of urgency and the need to constantly prove the value of your work.
We see you. There is another way.
We believe that research can generate meaningful insights without compromising care, relational responsibility, and our humanity.
What is Reimagining Research?
Reimagining Research is a five-week, hands-on cohort for researchers, educators, artists, and changemakers who are ready to unlearn colonial research frameworks—and co-create something radically different.
This is not another theory-heavy course. It’s an immersive, embodied experience where you’ll:
Experiment with alternative modes of inquiry including artistic and land-based research practices
Process and deepen knowledge through group dialogue and storytelling
Re-member research as a practice of care, relational responsibility, and creativity (and experience it too!)
Reflect on your own relationship to knowledge, power, and responsibility
We’ve welcomed over 200 participants from 30+ countries into this space. People who are tired of performative and extractive research, and who are ready to stretch their practice.
If you’re craving a research space that feels like truth, wonder, and belonging—you’ve found it.
Listen to our community
What to expect
Care-Infused Experiences
We’re often told that participants learn the most by observing the way we hold space. Rooted in respect and dignity, our learning experiences are crafted with thoughtfulness and care.
Embodied Transformation
Drawing upon the wisdom of Resmaa Menakem, we begin with our bodies, and consider somatic processing a crucial element of transformative practice.
Playful Experimentation
You can expect to find a little intrigue, weirdness, and wonder as we experiment with alternative ways of knowing and being, together.
Authentic Facilitation
We believe that honesty and humility are essential in the work we do. Our approach to facilitation is collaborative, emergent, and rooted in a commitment to accountability and repair.
Learning in Community
We believe learning is a shared experience rooted in collaboration and relational trust. We honor individual expertise, ancestral knowledge, lessons from our more-than-human relatives, and the wealth of collective wisdom.
Flexible Engagement
We offer a variety of ways for you to engage, meeting you where you’re at and moving at the pace of trust. Through curated resources, reflection prompts, and practice-oriented exercises, you can choose your own adventure.
Cohort Overview
Participant Guide & Pre-course Social
Before we begin, you will receive a comprehensive participant guide to help you prepare for our time together. Additionally, at the start of the program, we will host a social gathering where you will have an opportunity to connect with others in your cohort and start warming up relationally.
Week 1: Deconstructing Research
In this week, we begin to unravel assumptions we hold about research, as a practice and an institution, and where these stem from. We will explore how cultural norms and dominant worldviews influence our approach to inquiry and knowledge sharing. Through critical reflection and embodied practice, we will conceptualize different forms of power and untangle how they show up in our research practices.
Week 2: Disrupting Harm, Facilitating Repair
This week invites a deeper reckoning with harm - how it emerges, how it is experienced and how it is addressed. We will build the capacity to situate trauma within social and institutional contexts, and examine how logics of control and punishment are (re)produced within our research environments. By experimenting with practices of repair, participants will have an opportunity to reflect on their own relationship to harm and rupture.
Week 3: Who Cares? Centering Consent, Dignity, and Reciprocity
This week, we explore care, dignity, and reciprocity as living, relational practices that extend across human and more-than-human relationships. We will play with what these concepts feel like and could look like in practice, and we’ll explore strategies for creating more humanizing and safer research environments.
Week 4 and Week 5: Practicing Research Futures
In these two weeks, we experiment with alternative approaches to learning and inquiry using speculative exercises. Through artistic expression and tapping into ancestral wisdom, we will explore how to incorporate play and imagination throughout the research process. Participants will co-create artifacts for research justice - whether it’s a tool, ritual, reminder, or practice grounded in principles of care, reciprocity, and relational responsibility.
Ready to join us?
In a conscious effort to make this program as financially accessible as possible, we are offering 2 pricing options for you to choose from: Dandelion and Fern. Both options afford the same access and we kindly ask that yousign up for the tier that is within your financial capacity.
Fern
$900 USD
For people with adequate financial means or access to professional development funds
Dandelion
$600 USD
For people with limited financial means, where disposable income/savings is minimal.
Note: All online sales are subject to a 3% Stripe processing fee which will be added at checkout.
If you have trouble completing registration through our website, or would like a printable registration form, please email us at info@PauseAndEffect.ca. Payment plans (such as pay-in-4) may be available by request.
Financial assistance and redistribution
Applications for partial and full financial assistance are now closed. We commit to notifying applicants by the end of March 2026.
We tend to receive an abundance of applications for financial assistance and are limited in what we can provide alone. If you have access to financial wealth, we kindly invite you to consider practicing redistribution by contributing towards our scholarship fund. Please email us at info@pauseandeffect.ca to sponsor our students.
Frequently asked questions
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We offer tiered pricing to provide greater financial access for members of our community. We also offer financial assistance through full and partial scholarships every cohort. The portal will be open on March 1, 2026.
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For teams and organizations, we offer custom learning experiences. Please reach out to us using our contact form.
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At the end of the program, you will be asked to share a reflective assessment with us to receive a certificate of completion.
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You should plan to spend at least 3 to 4 hours per week. This includes our live weekly sessions for 2 hours, and approximately 1 to 2 hours of reading and engaging with your fellow cohort members to supplement your learning.
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Our weekly sessions facilitated via Zoom will be recorded. You will receive this recording within 48 hours after each session is complete. You will have access to all of the course recordings until Sept 1, 2026. Please note that you are not permitted to share these recordings with anyone else.
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Our weekly gatherings will be facilitated via Zoom. We will have live captioning available in English, provided directly by Zoom. Unfortunately, due to limited capacity, we are unable to offer ASL (American Sign Language) support at this time. As facilitators, we are happy to provide and will encourage others as well to share visual descriptions where possible.
There will be a combination of breakout sessions and independent activities. We understand that access needs vary depending on each individual. Upon registration, you will be asked to share any access needs or desires to help us improve your learning experience.
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You will be expected to engage with each other respectfully. This includes respecting pronouns, correctly pronouncing names (or asking if you are unsure), speaking from your own lived experience (using “I” statements), and refraining from any discriminatory or harmful comments. Before the start of the program, you will receive a detailed guide that outlines our shared expectations and ways of being.
If harm is caused and there is an opportunity to practice repair in the moment, this will be our preferred method; however, in the interest of prioritizing the collective experience, we will not be centering those who have caused harm, and they may be asked to leave. When necessary, we will follow up with those who are harmed or have caused harm, separately after the session. We reserve the right to remove anyone from the program who poses risk to the shared learning environment or jeopardizes the safety of facilitators and participants.