PATRON’s research is organized around building data and computational tools others can depend on — so researchers can focus on their work, not the wrangling.

Our Approach

Learn More

Data

Researchers need to know their data. Acquiring, cleaning, and linking data is time-consuming and diverts researchers from the questions they set out to answer. End-to-end, PATRON’s transparent pipeline delivers richly documented and thoroughly validated datasets that researchers can trust.

Computation

AI is transforming how institutions operate and how people engage with them. The pace of change is outstripping the capacity of researchers, organizations, and the public to assess and adapt. PATRON builds research capacity and tools to help Canadians leverage opportunities and defend against threats from these new technologies.

Collaboration

Breakthroughs emerge by looking at problems from different angles. Yet the intellectual costs of bridging quantitative and qualitative traditions, and the organizational costs of coordinating large teams, often prove prohibitive. PATRON’s framework — grounded in Domain-Driven Design and a modular architecture — keeps qualitative knowledge at the core of the project and lets scholars contribute from areas of strength.

Capacity

Canadians have never been more known to others — where they live, what they consume, how they vote, and how best to influence them. At the same time, the decline of journalism, and especially of local and investigative journalism, has deprived citizens of independent research and reporting about their country and communities. Through training and experiential learning, PATRON prepares students to leverage data and computing to close the gap in access to data and the capacity to make sense of it.

Transparency

Evidence sometimes speaks for itself, but it never asks questions. PATRON is committed to openness in three senses: we share our data, code, and methods so that others can scrutinize and extend our work; we welcome scholars from different traditions and perspectives; and we conduct research that informs Canadians about what happens inside their government. The result is a research culture grounded in discovery.

Our Partners