The RAIV is an extension of the CRI-VIFF (Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la violence familiale et la violence faite aux femmes), recognized by Université Laval's Commission de la recherche since 2006, and which for over 25 years has acted as a catalyst for Quebec expertise in family violence and violence against women, as well as in applied research.
Created in 1992 in the wake of the development of the Alliance of Canadian Research Centres on Violence, following the massacre of 14 young women at Montreal's École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989, CRI-VIFF has positioned itself as the most important scientific research center in the French-speaking part of Canada in this field. Since the first federal grant in 1992, members have obtained several infrastructure grants.
In 2018-2019, several CRI-VIFF members engaged in major redefinition and restructuring work, which led to the entire renewal of programming taking into account the evolution of recent knowledge on intimate, family and structural violence, work that is reflected in the Center's new name, namely: Recherches Appliquées et Interdisciplinaires sur les Violences intimes, familiales et structurelles (RAIV). Violence against women and children will continue to be studied, but will now be cross-referenced with violence against other populations vulnerable to violence as a result of unequal power relations (gender, race, class, etc.) in society.
RAIV has been funded as a Regroupement stratégique (RS) since 2020. RAIV takes an original look at the concept of violence, bringing together different disciplinary backgrounds to ensure an integrated and concerted approach to scientific programming. RAIV is the only Quebec center to be a member of the Canadian Alliance of Research Centers on Violence. Community and institutional partners are closely involved in updating our programming. Partnership and applied research is one of the Centre's major strengths, and this is reflected in its decision-making bodies: each of the scientific program areas is co-directed by a university researcher and a partner from the field. The applied and interdisciplinary nature of our research fosters the development of knowledge that contributes to social change, to promote practices that foster social justice and more egalitarian relations between the different groups of social players involved, and to improve public policies.