The Inaugural Engage Summit: Proceedings and Call to Action

Community-engaged research intentionally engages communities and people with lived experience as equal partners in the research process from project ideation through dissemination. The American Occupational Therapy Foundation sponsored a 2-day Engage Summit in October of 2024 to: showcase the depth and breadth of high-quality community-engaged research within occupational therapy, identify and evaluate systematic approaches to community-engaged methodologies to elevate occupational therapy–informed community-engaged scholarship, including evaluation, measurement, and dissemination, and build capacity among people with lived experience to actively engage in community-engaged research as full and equal partners. The event culminated in a World Café, a participatory process wherein attendees identified priorities for community-engaged research to guide the profession. The purpose of this paper is to provide a high-level overview of the proceedings, showcase the results from the World Café, and issue a call to action for continued development and institutional support of community-engaged research within occupational therapy and beyond.