Background Daniel Boorstin believed: “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the ‘illusion of knowledge’”. As the scope and complexity of injury and violence prevention and control challenges have grown, it has become evident that no single discipline can provide the solution. Effective public-private and non-traditional partnerships are needed both to understand and address the problem; and to remove the many obstacles posed by competing priorities and opposing interests. Each sector of a community, and even sub-groups of sectors, have their own culture, priorities and “language”. Even if we know that a stakeholder group exists, we may not appreciate how much we do not know about their culture.

Objectives 1. Describe the concept of multi-sectoral humility. 2. Introduce the Multi-Sectoral Influences Matrix. 3. Illustrate the relevance of the matrix in education, research and practice.

Results The need for the Multi-Sectoral Influences Matrix was inspired by practitioners. Its design and application has been honed over 15 years with feedback from hundreds of students in various disciplines and training settings. This presentation will include examples of breakthrough insights cited by students, as well as opportunities discovered through assets-focused inquiry.

Conclusions Challenging assumptions is a key component of critical thinking. No matter where we work in the world, the focus of our injury and violence prevention and control efforts, our level of training, or perceived need for resources and collaboration, we need to develop multi-sectoral humility. Until we do, we will not recognise the full potential of multi-sectoral collaboration.