Over the last 20 years the UBC Learning Exchange has worked to become a trusted part of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), one of the most complex neighbourhoods in North America. It has become an important academic unit of the university, and a model for university-community engagement. Everything the Learning Exchange does does out of its building  on Main street—a community drop-in, digital and English literacy, arts-based learning, Indigenous cultural programming, student learning, and community-based research—is done in collaboration with community organizations and community members, many of whom lead the activities.

Through this work, the Learning Exchange often heard how the DTES has been the focal point of an abundance of scholarly research studies, yet this research has remained largely out of reach to participants and community organizations. The recently launched Downtown Eastside Research Access Portal (DTES RAP) is designed to change that.

The DTES RAP provides access to research and research-related  materials through an easy-to-use public interface. This increased access serves a variety of purposes, including amplifying the reach and impact of research projects. The portal can also help minimize demands on community time from researchers undertaking new research projects by providing a reliable, primary information source. With support from the DTES RAP team, the portal can also help researchers meet open access requirements.

The portal was developed in consultation with community members and organizations as part of the Making Research Accessible initiative (MRAi)—a partnership between the UBC Learning Exchange and UBC Library’s Irving K. Barber Learning Centre—with input from the UBC Office of Community Engagement, UBC Knowledge Exchange, UBC’s School of Information (iSchool), the Simon Fraser University Library and the Vancouver Public Library. The UBC Knowledge Exchange unit has been working with the MRAi team to assess the benefits of this collaborative approach.

Read more about the launch of the DTES RAP and the impact of the Learning Exchange as it marked 20 years in the Downtown Eastside.