Knowledge Broker Stories: How to develop and deliver and effective KMb strategy

This is not so much a story as a reflection on some of the things I have learned about knowledge mobilization.  Let me start with an example - the issue of staying in school.

We have volumes of research that show the benefits of graduating high school and getting at least some post secondary education, yet we continue to have higher than desired drop out rates.

How do we address this issue?

We don’t address it by engaging in yet another research project, we address it by identifying a specific audience and developing knowledge mobilization strategies to impact that audience and then determine what is the right information (which may or may not require additional research), right format, and right timing.

If you want to influence the teenager directly then you develop tools to reach them - visual graphics, e-games, peer role model programs, etc. and deliver them at a time when they are likely to be influenced.  If your intended audience is parents you use different strategies.  If your audience is provincial policy makers you use yet other strategies.  In all cases, involving representatives of the audience (building relationships) as early as possible in the process will help ensure successful results.

Influencing decision making requires both the research and KMb to be audience driven - not knowledge product driven. They must both be demand (user need) driven, not supply (research or researcher desire) driven.  I often hear a researcher say “well, I wrote this very important paper about issue X and yet things have not changed”, to which I reply “who asked you to write a paper about issue X?” and you can guess the answer I receive more often than not. Before engaging in a research project it is important to have a clear understanding of who your intended audience(s) is and what their needs are.

For a researcher, demand driven clearly means answering a question someone has asked.  But what does it mean to be demand driven or audience driven KMb?  It means adopting KM  strategies and processes that will successfully influence the intended decision makers... and that is why getting the four “rights” in the above definition right, becomes critical.

Now if anyone says defining an audience as the driver for research is subverting the research process or that the research process is by nature curiosity driven, not driven by an audience, I would counter, all research, even basic science, is audience driven.  It is simply that for basic science the audience is often so fundamentally understood, it is simply part of the research culture and thus often not even articulated.  With a purpose of influencing intellectual discourse (adding new knowledge to the field), basic research has a clearly defined primary audience: the academy, either other researchers or students.  The best way to influence these decision makers is either peer reviewed journal publications or academic conferences. In other words, an effective KMb process for an academic audience is traditional dissemination!

My Key Lessons:

¥The research process should be viewed as a whole, not segmented into “production” and “dissemination”.

¥Research and KMb should be audience driven. That is research design, implementation and knowledge sharing or uptake, to be successful, must have a clearly defined audience at its centre.

¥If we accept that research is intended to influence decision making then it follows that the KMb process is as critical as the research process and should be undertaken with the same rigour.

¥Just as quality research production requires an expert researcher, quality KMb requires expertise as well. Researchers should not be expected to carry the burden.

¥Partnerships are important. Establishing a partnership of relevant stakeholders up front, as you are defining the issue to be addressed, will dictate to a large extent, the type of research questions to ask, the most relevant research methods, KMb methods and KMb experts.

¥A project work plan and budget should include all aspects of the project , not simply the production component. (one of the most frequent frustrations I hear when I speak to researchers is that funders expect more comprehensive KMb processes than simply publishing and yet are often unwilling to provide either the financial resources or the time to deliver effective KMb. That said I also believe there is a fair degree of lip service paid to the aspect of KMb by many researchers applying for funding - they see it as another trend in funders and often cut and paste a generic KMb paragraph in their proposals without the true desire or expertise to carry it through. Ultimately both of these issues will have to be addressed before KMb is truly institutionalized across Canada.)

¥Just as there are multiple audiences, there needs to be multiple forms of KMb (there is no “one size fits all”). Influencing policy makers requires a different strategy than influencing practitioners or individuals.

As a society or as agencies interested in influencing public policy, if we are serious about our desire to improve the role of research in decision making we have to focus on more than simply excellence in research, we must also emphasize excellence in KMb.  In my experience,  once the question “who do we want to influence?” is answered, the issue of what type of research methodology, KMb strategy (ies) and stakeholders to be involved will become clear.

Daryl Rock

To cite:

MLA format

Rock, Daryl, "Knowledge broker stories: How to develop and deliver and effective KMb strategy.” Weblog Entry. Knowledge Mobilization Works Blog. Posted December 16, 2009. Accessed (enter date). http://bit.ly/696X1C

APA format

Rock, D. Knowledge broker stories: How to develop and deliver and effective KMb strategy. Retrieved (enter date) from http://www.knowledgemobilization.net [http://bit.ly/696X1C]