Canada has a strong track record of community-based research. The Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRCC) has made partnership research one of the three main components of its funding architecture. Community Based Research Canada (CBRC) supports a national network of university and community researchers working on a broad range of projects addressing issues of high priority on the research and societal agendas. In November 2014, CBRC partnered with the Centre for Community Based Research in Waterloo, Ontario to host a national summit focused on developing standards of excellence for community-based research based on previous work and exemplified by seminal regional case studies. The follow-up is to establish a network of regional hubs of excellence to advance research and its applications to public policy at regional and national levels with standards of excellence derived from the summit serving as guiding principles for best practice.