CREATE Justice or Centre for Research, Evaluation, and Action Towards Equal Justice was created in response to a call for action for a more accessible justice system in Canada. CREATE Justice works towards its goal of creating a more accessible justice system, through the implementation of new or existing projects, often through its in-house lab, aimed at making justice more accessible in a variety of ways.

CREATE Justice recognizes that research evaluation, and action towards equal justice requires action-oriented, collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches. CREATE Justice’s research is oriented towards two general dimensions of access to justice: transforming legal and justice services, and the removal of systemic barriers to justice. Much of existing research focuses on “access” to legal services and institutions, an area that is extremely important. CREATE Justice’s focus on substantive, community-engaged, social justice research is an exciting emerging area, and the centre seeks to establish itself as a national and international leader. 

CREATE Justice is home to research, information, and data related to access to justice. CREATE Justice will help make important data more readily available for informed and credible research; centralize information and projects to better streamline efforts and communication between researchers; and encourage research, evaluation, and action at and beyond the University of Saskatchewan. 

Historically, since its inception, CREATE Justice has taken on projects which attempt to make justice more accessible for all Saskatchewan residents and which also meet a number of key guiding principles. In considering which projects CREATE Justice becomes involved in, the purpose of the project(s) typically identifies one of the following three principles as its aim in improving access to justice:  

• Guiding Principle 1: Testing and reviewing design methods
• Guiding Principle 2: Implementing a collaborative, action-oriented approach
• Guiding Principle 3: Advancing justice data and metrics, or program evaluation

Through research and action, each of these three principles is required to spark the type of societal and economic changes required to aid in making justice more accessible. Therefore, CREATE Justice has chosen to focus its attention on projects that meet one or more of these guiding principles. 

Are you a researcher at the University of Saskatchewan or another post-secondary institution interested in access to justice? A member of the public who is passionate about justice? A lawyer? Another justice system stakeholder? We want to hear from and work with you. Get in touch.