Ways of Knowing Initiative

The Ways of Knowing Initiative is an effort to leverage collective wisdom and action to transform the health science knowledge system by uplifting the knowledge, expertise, and power of people and communities who have been historically oppressed and marginalized, and advance health equity research along a continuum towards health justice. 

Knowledge, what we know and believe to be true, is derived from a variety of sources, including education, experience, instinct or intuition, and experimentation. Historically, the scientific community has placed greater value on experimental knowledge, elevating not only the information it provides, but also the methods by which it is obtained, resulting in an insulated and limited scientific knowledge system. 

In recognition of the importance of a more holistic basis of knowledge, constructed from multiple sources and approaches, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is working to transform the “Health Science Knowledge System” to shift the paradigm around how knowledge is created, valued, and distributed. 

To catalyze this transformation, in 2024, two Robert Wood Johnson Foundation programs – Evidence for Action (E4A) and Partners for Advancing Health Equity (P4HE) – in close collaboration with expert co-organizers – co-hosted the Ways of Knowing Symposia, a series of five town-hall like gatherings that brought together over 150 Indigenous and local community members, anti-racist and anti-colonial scholars, health equity advocates, and others with a long-standing commitment to and interest in advancing Indigenous and racial justice. Participants of the symposia voiced their challenges, priorities, and principles for transforming systems that support health equity research, including the role funding, academia, and publishing play in advancing Indigenous and racial health equity. These gatherings resulted in a list of aspirational principles and practices for anti-racist & anti-colonial health equity research.

Subsequently, in 2025, E4A & P4HE conducted a series of workshops and conversations with decision-makers to determine how to make these principles and practices a reality. Decision-makers consisted of people in positions of power or influence within the current health science knowledge system, who can make changes in the processes, policies, and procedures of their institutions and who could help inform a grounded understanding of the barriers and facilitators of change (e.g., funders, publishers/editors, academic administrators). 

These workshops sparked further conversations through focus groups held in early 2026 to define the roles that community-based organizations and community members can play in advancing transformation within the system and shaping more accountable practices and structures. The collective recommendations from these focus groups, gatherings, and workshops throughout 2024-2026 will be reflected in the Ways of Knowing Action Agenda, which we plan to re-release this October 2026.