Knowledge Broker Stories: Lasting Interpersonal Relationships

My interest in better connections between research and practice is long-standing and deeply rooted in the various kinds of work I have done in education.  As a young, elected member of a school board in Manitoba in the 1970s I was struck by how little of our policy seemed to be based on sound evidence.  Later in the 1970s I was the director of a small non-profit organization in Manitoba that worked on bringing evidence to bear on policy and practice.  That is when I did my first real KM work – writing various short summaries of research findings for educators. 

Since that time my career has gone back and forth between academia and government.  I also served for a couple of years as Chief Research Officer for the Peel School District in Ontario.  I’ve been a professor and researcher at The University of Manitoba and now hold a Canada Research Chair at OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education).  I’ve also held senior civil service positions in education in Manitoba and Ontario, including serving as deputy minister in each province. 

In all these roles I’ve worked to bring research into the policy process more strongly and effectively.  Much of this work was intuitive – for example, producing summaries of research for educators, which is something I have done in four or five different organizations.  In government I’ve helped to create, in both Manitoba and Ontario, stronger practices around knowledge mobilization not only in making policy, but as part of the work of both ministries. 

In my current role as a research chair, my primary research focus is on knowledge mobilization; I have a team of graduate students and external partners with whom we work.  Our program of research and KM can be found on our website – www.oise.utoronto.ca/rspe.

This is an exciting time to be working on KM issues.  There is a worldwide explosion of interest in the field, not only in education but in other sectors as well.  Many initiatives are underway, but just as importantly, more research is being done so that knowledge mobilization can itself become guided by stronger knowledge, so that less effort is wasted on well-intentioned but ineffective practices.  For example, a great deal of effort goes into creating organizational websites, yet many sites get very few visitors.  Moreover, according to the analysis our team is doing, many sites do not use principles of effective communication.  Similarly, much effort goes into creating research products of various kinds but often these products are poorly designed in relation to what we know about effective communication.  Even more, we know that the key to mobilizing knowledge is creating lasting interpersonal relationships that carry over into daily work, yet a great deal of KM work is still in the old world  - rather like my message here – of trying to convince people through writing.  So there is much room for improvement and greater impact, even within existing resources and efforts.

Ben Levin

To cite:

MLA format
Levin, Ben, "Knowledge broker stories: Lasting Interpersonal Relationships" Weblog Entry. Knowledge Mobilization Works Blog. Posted December 4, 2009. Accessed (enter date). http://bit.ly/5Uy46s

APA format
Levin, B. Knowledge broker stories: Lasting Interpersonal Relationships. Retrieved (enter date) from http://www.knowledgemobilization.net [http://bit.ly/5Uy46s]

If you would like to contribute a story to the Knowledge Broker Series, please contact Peter Levesque