Some Canadian contributions to understanding knowledge mobilisation

Abstract

Knowledge mobilisation (KM) is our label for the emerging field of inquiry that seeks to strengthen connections between research, policy and practice across sectors, disciplines and countries. This paper first outlines the challenges associated with improving KM across public services. Next, it examines contributions from the health sector (findings and implications of empirical work on KM being conducted by two teams of Canadian scholars) in relation to the education sector and the broader field. Then, it outlines the Research Supporting Practice in Education (RSPE) programme (including products, events, networks and empirical studies), which attempts to increase KM in education. The paper concludes with some ideas and strategies that can be done quickly and easily to improve KM almost immediately in any organisation as well as with suggestions for further research.

Conceptualising the research–practice–professional development nexus: mobilising schools as ‘research-engaged’ professional learning communities

“…Clearly, greater cognisance of the school as a social organisation in influencing teacher values and behaviours is required. Here, leadership and management play a crucial role in knowledge mobilisation, as acknowledged by Cooper and Levin (2010). In short, for knowledge mobilisation to underpin the PLC and research-engaged school, organisational factors appear to exert greater influence than individual factors.…”

Connecting Research to Action: Perspectives on Research Utilisation

“…Repeated claims are well recognised, on the one hand that practitioners make too little use of research (De Goede et al, 2012;Hanney et al, 2003;Landry et al, 2007) and on the other that researchers pay insufficient attention to making their findings known, useful, and usable (Cooper and Levin, 2010;Nutley et al, 2007). When addressing this challenge, the research utilisation literature frequently envisages two communities or cultures: those who generate research and those who might use it.…”

“…Academic esteem and incentive systems have historically placed much less value on practice or policy relevance or 'service to society', and historically researchers have not been rewarded for active engagement in knowledge transfer (Allen, 2002). For the same reasons, according to the two communities theory, even where researchers make some efforts to communicate their research, this is predominantly through one-directional 'engineering' (Landry et al, 2001) or 'producer push' (Cooper and Levin, 2010), and the knowledge intended for use is not necessarily the knowledge needed by users.…”

“…So, in common with EBP, there is extensive commitment to rendering research accessible, through jargon-free language, clear examples of practice relevance, and access to information technology (Estabrooks, 1999;Plath, 2006). Likewise, there is strong recognition that dissemination activities are most successful when research knowledge is not just transferred but translated to research users (Cooper and Levin, 2010;Hemsley-Brown and Sharp, 2004;Nutley et al, 2007;Sebba, 2013;Sin, 2008;Stevens et al, 2009). But distinctively in KPU discourse, knowledge transfer and translation between the two communities is to be achieved not simply through protocols, practice tools, or discrete presentations to varying audiences, but through sustained engagement processes between producers and the same intended users (Chagnon et al, 2010;Gano et al, 2006;Nutley et al, 2003).…”

“…Within KPU discourse, writers commonly speak interchangeably of production and utilisation, or use other terms altogether (Backer, 1991;Estabrooks et al, 2006Estabrooks et al, , 2008Knott and Wildavsky, 1980). Graham et al (2006) attempted to distinguish between knowledge translation, knowledge transfer, dissemination, knowledge exchange, and research diffusion; Eccles et al (2009) referred to implementation science, and Cooper and Levin (2010) to knowledge mobilisation and innovation.…”