Bruce Gilbert
Community Engagement Practitioner
Bruce is a “Community Engagement Practitioner” and he has come to this position through a diverse array of work and volunteer experiences.
Over the past eight years Bruce Gilbert served as a member of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s (GNL) senior executive team. During this time, he worked as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Rural Secretariat (2008-13) and as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Office of Public Engagement (2013-16). In these roles, Bruce and his team focused on public engagement processes and community-based research developed collaboratively with community, business, labour and academic partners.
Bruce has also spent much of his career working with non-governmental organizations in Newfoundland and Labrador and beyond. He has has worked or volunteered internationally in South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Togo, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Indonesia and Costa Rica. He is currently serving as volunteer policy expert on an Institute of Public Administration of Canada/CUSO supported green growth and youth entrepreneurship project in Nigeria.
Bruce has a masters degree in adult education (St. Francis Xavier University; focus: community mobilization and popular education) and an interdisciplinary PhD (Dalhousie University; focus: multi-stakeholder collaboration, partnership synergy and resource and environmental management). He has conducted Postdoctoral research at Memorial University (focus: understanding effectiveness in academic-community partnerships) and has received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship, several Canadian International Development Agency awards, and the John Dobson Award for excellence in international adult education (St. Francis Xavier University). Bruce is also a proud graduate of Leadership for Environment and Development (Lead Canada – Cohort 7) and is the current President of the International Association for Public Participation (Canada).
Areas of interest: public engagement, policy development, community-campus partnerships, environmental management, adult education, entrepreneurship