The Implementing Smart Cities Interventions to Build Healthy Cities training platform will leverage the multidisciplinary and multisectoral nature of Smart Cities approaches, along with a $60M investment by Infrastructure Canada, to provide world-class, high-impact training in implementation science. We will work with three Smart Cities Challenge Finalists and Winners focused on food and health issues to provide trainees with a rich ecosystem of 100+ ready-to-go projects, and access to 100+ community partners and the implementation science expertise of 50+ researchers in epidemiology, public health, health services and policy, urban planning, management, economics and other social sciences, as well as engineering, data and computer sciences. Funding was approved in June 2021.

COIL and Our Food Future have collaborated with the SMART Training Platform at conferences (Ottawa, November 2022), for research proposals, and for the SMART Training Summer School (University of Guelph, Summer 2022 & 2023). The platform aims to equip the next generation of researchers to implement successful, scalable and enduring solutions to healthy city challenges facing growing urban centres of all sizes in Canada and globally. COIL and Our Food Future’s participation helps to bring theory to life with practical case studies and experiential opportunities, which is a core objective of the program. Several collaborators from academic institutions across the country, including University of Guelph and the Arrell Food Institute, on program support across other COIL and Our Food Future initiatives.