The SCCR Unit has made significant strides in building a number of research linkages over the last nine years. The linkages with Cancer Care Ontario (CCO), the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) and other regional cancer centres, e.g., Toronto-Sunnybrook and Windsor Regional Cancer Centres, were vital in conducting relevant health services research for the SCCR Unit.

As time evolved, the SCCR Unit sought collaboration with other groups and agencies at the local, provincial and national level to respond to the issues raised in the delivery of supportive cancer care services.

The ongoing work with decision aids has led to linkages and close collaboration with a number of community-based surgeons within the regions of Central West, Northwestern and Eastern Ontario, and with such groups as the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario (ICES), the Radiation Oncology Research Group in Kingston, and the Clinical Epidemiology Unit of the Loeb Health Research Institute in Ottawa.

The SCCR Unit's work in the area of information exchange has progressed forward as a result of close collaboration with groups based at McMaster University including the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA), researchers within Health Evidence Application and Linkage Network (HealNet), the Health Information Research Unit (HIRU), and McMaster University Evidence-based Practice Center (part of a network designated by the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research).

More recently, SCCR Unit investigators have collaborated with other health system-linked research units, e.g., the Health and Social Service Utilization Unit at McMaster University and the Thames Valley Family Practice Research Unit in London, on research projects related to improved communication within the health care sector.