On 19th May Colin Ewart, Executive Lead for International Business Development from the Rick Hansen Foundation(http://www.rickhansen.com/) met with UKSCIRN during their UK tour.

The Foundation and our Network had a worthwhile discussion which managed to  ascertain a strategic relationship for UK participation in clinical trials being rolled out by the Foundation internationally.

The Rick Hansen Foundation (RHF) is a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to finding a cure for spinal cord injury (SCI) and making communities both in Canada and internationally fully accessible and inclusive. 

Their founder and CEO, Rick Hansen is a former Olympian/ Paralympian who embarked on the Man In Motion World Tour twenty-five years ago. He wheeled more than 40,000km through 34 countries, including the United Kingdom, raising $26 million for SCI research and accessibility initiatives. Since then his foundation has raised more than $200M to support these areas. 

Most recently the Foundation launched the Rick Hansen Institute(http://www.rickhanseninstitute.org/) - a Canada-wide collaboration of SCI researchers, health care professionals, and service providers, community organizations and people with SCI across Canada  working together towards a common goal.