Luc Noreau

Luc Noreau, a researcher and specialist in spinal cord injury rehabilitation, has helped meaningfully enhance people's quality of life with his work. Through his determination to build an effective and now highly reputed research organization at Université Laval, Dr. Noreau can take pride in having helped improve daily life for people with spinal cord injuries.

Significant societal benefits

Professor Luc Noreau is a prolific researcher who has written or cowritten 147 scientific articles with many collaborators here in Canada and abroad. His research focuses primarily on the evaluation of rehabilitation outcomes and social participation of people with spinal cord injuries, the study of factors that promote their social participation and quality of life, and the characterization and evaluation of rehabilitation treatments. His work has yielded tools used extensively by professionals who work with people with disabilities. Professor Noreau codeveloped the Assessment of Life Habits (LIFE-H/MHAVIE), one of the most widely used tools—owing to its relevance and measurability—for evaluating how people with disabilities accomplish daily living activities and social roles. The standard version has been translated into a number of languages and there are versions for children as well. This evaluation tool has had a significant impact on practices in rehabilitation and return to community.

Professor Noreau is often called upon to work with leading research groups. For example, he has helped develop physical activity guidelines for people with spinal cord injuries for the SCI Solutions Network, as well as a database for the International Spinal Cord Injury Quality of Life Basic Data Set. He also served on the External Advisory Panel of Vancouver's International Collaboration on Repair Discovery (ICORD), one of the world's best known spinal cord injury research centres.

Over the course of his career, Professor Noreau has supervised or co-supervised 22 graduate students and 2 postdoctoral fellows.

An inspiring administrator

Professor Noreau has been heavily involved in management roles. In 2007, he was named organizing committee chair for États généraux de la recherche en traumatologie au Québec (which set subject priority and guidelines for the development of trauma care research), then chaired a working group on the transfer of trauma knowledge. In 2008 and 2009, he served as scientific director of the SCI Solutions Network community integration subnetwork, supported by the Rick Hansen Institute. He also served on the board of the Québec Rehabilitation Research Network (REPAR) from 2006 to 2011.

Professor Noreau's most important management contribution has been at a Université Laval research centre. From 2010 to 2016, he served as scientific director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration (CIRRIS), one of the few centres in Canada to integrate biomedical and social research during rehabilitation. Under his stewardship, this renowned research organization saw a surge in hiring, continued to develop intersectoral research, and established a partnership and innovation office to facilitate collaboration with private enterprise.

To recognize Professor Noreau's exceptional commitment and contributions to research, REPAR presented him with its 2016 Prix d'excellence.