We are pleased to report on our achievements in 2025-26. The Alberta Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research SUPPORT Unit (AbSPORU) continued strengthening Alberta’s patient-oriented research (POR) ecosystem by creating and improving the infrastructure, partnerships, and expertise needed to create and move evidence that improves health, healthcare, and health outcomes.
AbSPORU operates across four important and integrated teams that provide vital services to researchers or all ilks.
We lead bold efforts to tackle Alberta’s complex health challenges by expanding access to health data and analytical expertise, embedding implementation science, championing meaningful patient and community engagement, and building capacity for more researchers to take a patient-oriented approach to their projects.
Alberta’s Ability to support learning health systems using evidence-informed decision making is strengthened through AbSPORU and through the engagement of people with lived and living experience.
AbSPORU Extended!
This year also marked a defining milestone for AbSPROU. Following an extensive renewal process, AbSPORU secured a two-year funding extension with renewed investment from existing partners together with support from new financial and in-kind partners that are committed to realizing the power of patient-oriented research.
Further, together
AbSPORU has also worked to solidify relationships with the province’s newly established healthcare agencies by broadening its governance and partnerships and aligning with emerging provincial priorities. This reinforces Alberta’s provincial patient-oriented research ecosystem and positions AbSPORU for its next phase of impact.
Looking Ahead...
As AbSPORU enters its extension period, we build off of a strong foundation of investment in POR over the past decade. Our evolution will focus on:
- Enhancing our system-facing capacity.
- Advancing deployment of the Snowflake Trusted Research Environment.
- Strengthening evaluation and impact measurement.
- Synthesizing evidence and knowledge mobilization.
- Broadening our client base to include health system decision-makers and other knowledge users.
- Enhancing patient and community engagement to continue to integrate lived experience into health system priorities and research.
Our established strengths carry us into the future and align with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s emerging vision for the future of Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR), which sees SUPPORT Units as embedded partners within learning health systems.
AbSPORU is well positioned to support the full evidence-to-action continuum and serve as Alberta’s provincial platform for a learning health system that uses evidence-informed decision-making to achieve measurable improvements in health outcomes, health equity, system performance, and the long-term sustainability of Alberta’s healthcare system.
Building On Our Momentum
AbSPORU continues to evolve from a research support organization into an embedded partner in Alberta’s health system. The accomplishments highlighted in this report illustrate how our four core program areas are collectively supporting this goal.
While renewals, extensions, and evolution move forward, our core remains: we will deepen collaboration among patients, communities, researchers, clinicians, health system leaders and policy makers to improve health outcomes.
Our network of the above groups of health system partners are critical to our success. Their commitment to collaboration continues to demonstrate the strength of Alberta’s research innovation ecosystem and the value of working together to address complex health system changes.
These changes require proactive, timely, and actional evidence. AbSPORU is structured to meet this demand and evolve alongside the system.
We will continue to provide services that modernize health data infrastructure, advance implementation science, integrate patient and community partners and develop capacity across the province in order to strengthen a learning health system that ensures that improvements are applied where they can have the greatest impact for patients, communities, healthcare providers, and all Albertans.
Making a Difference in Research
Since inception, AbSPORU has supported Alberta’s research ecosystem, and significantly advanced the science and practice of patient-oriented research.
Data Requests
Served more than 2,400 requests for data access
Data Access
Reduced wait time for accessing health data from >180 weeks to as little as 3-4 weeks
Patient Engagement
Advanced the practice of engaging patients through training, registries, and PROMs/PREMs
EDIAA
Supported 756 instances of EDIAA categories in Phase II alone
Capacity Development
Provided 850+ in-person and online training opportunities to more than 26,000 participants
Studentship Award
Distributed $3.9M in funding to 133 students via our Graduate Studentship Program
Data Holdings
Expanded administrative data holdings from 16 (2015) to 70 (2026)
Annual Conference
Hosted 372 participants at our 10th Annual Northwest SPOR Collaborative Forum
Vital Services for Alberta's Researchers
Requests Completed in 2025-26
A National Strategy
AbSPORU is one of 11 provincial/territorial SPOR SUPPORT Units established by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) as part of its national Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research.
About the Alberta Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research SUPPORT Unit (AbSPORU)
The Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit (AbSPORU) is a program innovation aimed at improving health outcomes for Albertans. Investment in AbSPORU supports new and ongoing patient-oriented health research, strengthening Alberta’s position as a hub for world-class research, and helping to attract new investment and talent to our province. AbSPORU is pan-provincial, with offices based out of our partners the University of Alberta and University of Calgary.
AbSPORU is on a mission to support and accelerate patient-oriented research and the uptake of evidence into healthcare practice and policy. Working closely with researchers, clinicians, healthcare leaders, and policymakers, we ensure that patient and community perspectives are not only heard, but are central to driving meaningful change at the health system level.
By bridging research, policy and practice, we empower decision- makers to implement sustainable, high-impact improvements rooted in lived experience and informed by evidence. This collaborative approach helps to ensure that Alberta’s Learning Health System is responsive, inclusive, continuously innovating, and designed to deliver lasting, measurable benefits for all Albertans.