Alison Paprica

Professor Alison Paprica resides at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, at the University of Toronto, Canada. She also Executive Adviser and Affiliate Scientist for the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

She was Vice President, Health Strategy and Partnerships at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Canada where she was the corporate lead for health strategy, overseeing health research collaborations, health data partnerships and health AI application projects. Alison joined Vector with more than 20 years of management experience in the government and private and not-for-profit sectors. Immediately before joining Vector, she was Director, Strategic Partnerships at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). In that role, she laid the groundwork for ICES analytic services for the private sector, initiated ICES’ first public engagement work, and developed and expanded ICES’ partnerships with important provincial, national and international health data holding organizations.

From 2010 to 2013, Alison was the Director of the Planning, Research & Analysis Branch at the Ontario Ministry of Health & Long-Term Care, responsible for up to $60 million of annual health research investments. She also led extensive knowledge translation activities to ensure that research findings were taken up and used in policy development and planning. Within the Ontario Public Service, Alison also held the positions of founding Manager of the Planning Unit at the Ministry of Health & Long-Term Care and Manager of Performance Measurement & Results at the Ministry of Research & Innovation.

Before she joined the Ontario Public Service, Alison worked in international pharmaceutical R&D for seven years at Eli Lilly, Astra Pharma and Genpharm Inc. She holds an Honours Combined BSc in Biochemistry and Chemistry (McMaster), a PhD in organic chemistry (Western University) and is Assistant Professor (status) at the Institute for Health Policy, Management & Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She is among the first 5% of people to obtain Project Management Professional (PMP) certification internationally, and led the development and delivery of two University of Toronto courses focused on project management for research.