Date & time
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
12 p.m. – 2 p.m.
12 p.m. – 2 p.m.
Community events
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Beyond publications: Research as a tool for social change
A Kinship & Council Conversation with Sylvia Morse and Alessandra Renzi
Speaker(s)
Sylvia Morse and Alessandra Renzi
Cost
This event is free.
Organization
Where
J.W. McConnell Building
1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation
Room LB 145
Accessible location
Yes - See details
What does it take for research to influence policy not in theory, but in practice? How can data, storytelling, and planning become tools for organizing and accountability? And how might institutions act not as neutral observers but as active allies in the struggle for housing justice and policy change?
This Kinship & Council gathering brings together Sylvia Morse (Pratt Center for Community Development, NYC) and Alessandra Renzi (Concordia University) for a conversation on mobilizing research towards systemic change.
Drawing from work in New York and Montreal, this conversation will delve into examples/case studies where research supported community-led strategies and influenced policy change and moments where it fell short.
Register here or drop by if you are on campus.
Sylvia Morse is the Director of Research & Policy at Pratt Center for Community Development, leading Pratt Center's policy and research development and implementation.
Sylvia has worked across the public, nonprofit, and community sectors. Her work focuses on community planning, the solidarity economy, and housing justice.
Before joining Pratt Center, Sylvia served as Assistant Director of the Cooperative Development Program at Center for Family Life in Sunset Park where she partnered with domestic workers to grow worker-owned cooperative businesses citywide. Prior to this, she worked at the NYC Office of Management and Budget as Senior Policy Analyst on Superstorm Sandy housing recovery initiatives and at the Corporation for Supportive Housing to advance supportive housing programs and policy nationally.
Sylvia is Co-Editor of the book Zoned Out!: Race, Displacement, and City Planning in New York City. The book addresses the racial, economic, and spatial impacts of zoning policy in NYC. Sylvia served as a Board Member of the Cooper Square Community Land Trust from 2020-2022.
Alessandra Renzi is Associate Professor, Communication Studies at Concordia University. Dr. Renzi’s interdisciplinary work explores the linkages and relays between media, art and civic engagement through community-led research, ethnographic studies and media projects. She has studied pirate television networks in Italy, the surveillance of social movements in Canada after 9–11 and housing and data justice in Indonesia. Her current research investigates how society’s increasing reliance on platforms, algorithms and AI is changing urban landscapes and community organizing alike. She is the PI of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant titled “On the Margins of the Platform Economy: Community-led Responses to Technical Gentrification,” with focus on Montreal’s Parc Extension neighbourhood.
About the Kinship & Council Series
The Kinship & Council series brings together the SHIFT community with inspiring thinkers, organizers, and collaborators who are actively deepening practices of social transformation. In addition to sharing their expertise with individual projects, invited guests offer public conversations that expand our collective learning and widen our perspectives on social transformation.
Please note - this event is held in person, at the SHIFT space. If, for accessibility reasons, you are not able to join in person but would like to attend the event, please contact shift.calendar@concordia.ca and we can work together to see if an alternative solution is possible. A week’s notice will give us the best chance of making something work.