On the building of silos and bridges

I am writing this on vacation – a few days away in Vancouver….rain, rain and more rain…but it’s not home and that’s important. I always try to catch up on some reading while away and this week I read a lengthy paper from the Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme at Oversees Development Institute (a UK independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues) and it reminded me of two blogs I had previously posted. In my blog about Sarah Michael’s work on knowledge mobilization for environmental policy and in an unrelated post, I wrote about how we need to use evidence to inform our own KM services. As I read the piece from RAPID I came back to a synthesis of these two previous blogs.

RAPID produced the paper “Knowledge, policy and power: Six dimensions of the knowledge–development policy interface” available here. The paper explored the six key areas of the knowledge–development policy interface including: Types of Knowledge; Political Context; Sectoral Dynamics; Actors; Innovation Frameworks and Knowledge Translation. Three key things I took away from this article:

1- The authors cite Ian Graham’s knowledge generation and translation cycle model. I am continually impressed how Canadians are among global leaders in thinking about and doing knowledge mobilization.

2- The section on Innovation Systems (IS) aligns well with ResearchImpact’s KM philosophy. To summarize:

• IS emphasizes the supply as well as the demand for knowledge, and the need to strengthen the voice of knowledge users

• The importance of tacit knowledge

• The importance of networks and linkages as channels for increasing the uptake of knowledge, and the need to facilitate trust and interaction

• The need for ‘intermediary functions’

3- The role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to support the work of intermediaries.  “Rather than trying to bring audiences into an organization’s own space, ICTs have enabled them to take its messages to the audience.”  ODI cites use of RSS feeds, video streamed public meeting, Facebook, the production of short research summaries and Wikipedia.  Click on the “Web 2.0” tag cloud on the blog and see what we have written on ICTs and KM.

The work and writing of ODI from the perspective of International Development is evocative of the writing of Sarah Michaels on Environmental Policy. There is convergent evolution of tools and processes for KM regardless of the discipline. Here’s the first issue: SILOS. On October 7, 2009 Jason Guriel wrote in Mobilize This! about KM as a means of breaking down silos. If we continue to read, write and speak in silos we will not maximize learning opportunities to continually improve our own KM services by using evidence from any discipline to inform our own KM practice.

Here’s the next issue: BRIDGES. As ODI writes, intermediaries are critically important in knowledge-policy interface, “Empirical research on intermediaries is urgently needed given the high level of demand for such a brokering role by analysts, policymakers and practitioners alike, as are efforts to assess and share lessons with regard to new approaches to capacity building.” Knowledge brokers such as those developing within the ResearchImpact network and the networks forming amongst York’s KM associated research projects (see here) are intermediaries. We can build bridges between our own silos.

So a charge to all knowledge brokers: you may need to live in a silo for your own professional service delivery but build bridges between the silos.

And a question: who sets the table that allows diverse knowledge brokers to share a meal? Where can the brokers in nursing talk to the brokers in environmental policy? Where can knowledge brokers in mental health sit down with those in international development? Any thoughts? Use the comment feature above to let us know what you think.

P.S. While in Vancouver check out the Pacific Palisades Hotel. It looks like a converted apartment building just off Robson St. so your hotel room is actually an apartment and centrally located. Come to Vancouver and check out the Pacific Palisades and go to the Vancouver Aquarium where you can participate in “sharing knowledge”.

Tech Transfer Growing Pains?

A video report from David Phipps of day 3 of the Alliance for the Commercialization of Canadian Technology technology transfer conference in Victoria, B.C.

Way to Grow Tech Transfer

Our first ever video blog post from David Phipps of ResearchImpact on day 2 of the Alliance for the Commercialization of Canadian Technology technology transfer conference being held in Victoria, B.C.

It’s Time for Tech Transfer to Grow Up

I am posting from Victoria, BC (staying at the lovely, historic Empress Hotel) where I am attending Canada’s national technology transfer conference hosted by the Alliance for the Commercialization of Canadian Technology. I have a few days to reflect on Canada’s technology transfer (TT) industry where I began my story many years ago, my story which was recently told in “From Broker to Broker in 17 short years” posted on Peter Levesque’s blog at Knowledge Mobilization Works! Over the next few days I will join some of my former colleagues from my former lives as we consider the state of the TT nation. This is what I think going into the conference:

It’s time for TT to grow up.

TT has done some wonderful things for industry, academia and for society. Don’t just look at the money reported by StatsCan’s “Commercialization of Intellectual Property in the Higher Education Sector” which reported $52M in royalty revenue for Canadian universities in 2007 (Read the report here) but look also at the Better World Project that tells the stories of societal impact of TT. Nonetheless, The Council of Canadian Academies recently released its report “Innovation and Business Strategy: Why Canada Falls Short” (Read the report here). Canada continues to under perform on innovation metrics. This shouldn’t be news but academic TT needs to examine its role in this innovation system. Canadian institutions spent $41.8M to generate the $52M in royalty revenues (http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/scte04-eng.htm) not to mention all the investments in managing research contracts, Material Transfer Agreements and Confidentiality Agreements and support for internal and external legal counsel. The system isn’t running on all cylinders, or, as Ron Freedman of The Impact Group says, we need a new paradigm for research and innovation (http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/686405).

It’s time for TT to grow up.

By this I mean it is time for TT to grow, expand and explore new value propositions. The unilateral push of patents into the hands of industry is only one space where the university and industry interact. It’s time the talented TT workforce applied its skills in brokering university-industry relationships to the many other spaces of university-industry engagement. Some universities already take a more holistic view of these spaces. The Co-operative Education & Career Services administers the co-operative education system for the University of Waterloo. Luc Lalande (@LucLalande) at Carleton University spends only about 5% of his time pushing patents out the door. The other 95% of his time he is supporting innovation and entrepreneurship of his faculty and graduate students. Penn State recognizes the broader roles of university-industry engagement in local innovation systems (http://oewd.psu.edu/tre/files/Proceedings-10-06-08.pdf) and the Rochester Institute of Technology has set up a centre to support student lead innovation (http://www.rit.edu/news/?v=47022). Look for York University to soon launch Innovation York that will learn from may of these experiences and develop a hybrid of technology transfer, industry liaison and knowledge mobilization.

As we described in Evidence & Policy, KM isn’t a discrete activity but a suite of services. Why do we continue to rely on TT as the principle means of mediating the university-industry relationship? Imagine the potential for impact if we further increase the flow of people, ideas, money and materials between universities and industries by allowing the substantial talents of the TT workforce to support a broader range of university-industry engagement. Imagine the increased quantity and quality of industry matching research grants from CIHR, NSERC, OCE and yes, even SSHRC whose business, management, finance, legal and design scholars are very much relevant to industry.

As I previously wrote (KM & TT: Chapter 3), TT has something to learn from KM and that is why I am here at ACCT. Over the next 2 days I’ll blog and I’ll tweet (@researchimpact) from the conference. In addition to re-connecting with old friends I’ll be looking for new ideas and new friends who I can grow up with. I’m ready to grow up.

Are you?

Knowledge Brokers and the Metaphors They Love

The following is a guest blog from Jason Guriel. A Research Assistant in the Knowledge Mobilization Unit at York University, Jason works to summarize and communicate the results of York research. He is also a PhD Candidate in English at York and has published two collections of poems.

As a graduate student at York University, the Knowledge Mobilization (KM) Unit has provided not just summer work but an opportunity to learn about some of the more policy-relevant research being carried out on campus. But as a PhD candidate in York’s Department of English, my relationship to KM is a bit murkier. Scholars, critics, professors, and graduate students who study literature are not typically engaged in research that is obviously policy relevant or that has much of a direct, material impact on, say, a local community. The same is probably true of academics in other areas, such as the fine arts. KM encompasses a pretty broad suite of services, but what can it offer disciplines like English – disciplines where research, though valuable in and of itself, does not necessarily always aim to have an explicit social use?

Well, one thing KM offers – or, at least, one thing it has offered me – is a better understanding of the nature of collaboration. There’s a lot of chatter, in the world of research, about the need to break through the silos in which academics are often isolated, and to bring these supposed hermits blinking into the light, into contact with others. Of course, the image of the researcher in the silo has become a cliché, and clichés can grate a bit, especially when you study poetry, as I’m fortunate enough to do. (Poetry, see, often tries to avoid clichés in pursuit of some more memorable way to say what amounts to the same old thing.) But when I really think about the cliché of the silo, I can’t help but picture an academic in an actual grain silo, up to his Adam’s apple in sorghum or something. As I picture it, this poor professor (or graduate student, or researcher) is talking and talking, saying important things even though the words remain trapped in the silo, caroming around, echoing uselessly. Outside of the silo, passing pedestrians hear only muffled noises, if they hear anything at all – if they even notice the silo! The silo, I should add, isn’t necessarily the academic’s fault; it may be the result of a discipline’s insularity, or the rigidity of institutional barriers, or any number of roadblocks for which there may be good reasons.

Knowledge brokers would seem to be those folks intent on knocking some holes into the silo – not just to let some beams of light in but also to let some beams of light out: out of the silo and into the community. They don’t want to dismantle the silo per se; they just want to help spread the sorghum. Or something.

So the silo metaphor, though a little cliché and unwieldy, is not so bad, if you really think about it (and, by doing so, rehabilitate it). And KM people, like poetry people, are always, it seems, thinking in metaphors and analogies and similes. One of the better metaphors sees knowledge brokers as agnostics: in other words, they believe in collaboration but have no firm, orthodox ideas about the form that collaboration should take. Another good one: knowledge brokers are especially imaginative matchmakers. They’re always looking to manufacture novel matches between researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners. They’re open to different, Twister^®-like relationships.

Whatever else KM represents – and this may include many things – it surely represents the potential of two-way relationships, the potential to learn from others even as they learn from you, the opportunity not just to mobilize knowledge (like the cliché of the rolling, moss-less stone) but to share knowledge. To engage in activities that are mutually beneficial. To make, I suppose, metaphors. A metaphor, after all, enables us to see one thing in terms of another. It enables a connection.

What’s old is new again – test your knowledge about knowledge systems

Many of us think that KM (KT/KE/KTE/KI/KMb… whatever) is an emerging discipline.  It may be an emerging academic discipline but the practice isn’t new.  Jonathan Lomas [Brit Med J (2007) 334:129] reports that KM-like networks of industry and academics were active in the German dye industry in the late 1800s (side bar, this might have been more like industry liaison than KM, for more on that see our blog August 6, 2009).  Also, the University of Wisconsin State Agents performed a KM-ish role for local agriculture at the turn of the 20^th century [Educational Record (1992) 73(2): 12].  Nonetheless, I still get pleasantly surprised when I read an “old” article that reads like it could have been written today.  In 2003, David Cash (then at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) wrote “Knowledge systems for sustainable development” [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100: 8086].  Read the full article here.

How many of these key points from the article sound familiar to you?

1. Effective knowledge systems engage in communication, translation and mediation
2. Efforts to mobilize are more likely to be effective when they manage boundaries between knowledge and action
3. Active, iterative, and inclusive communication between experts and decision makers proves crucial to systems that mobilize knowledge
4. Mobilizing requires active mediation (at ResearchImpact we call this knowledge brokering)
5. Mediation works through increasing transparency (for more on transparency, see our blog on August 25, 2009)
6. Systems mobilize knowledge for action by translations that facilitate mutual comprehension
7. Mediation activities help make the boundary between experts and decision makers selectively porous

If you got 7 out of 7 congratulations, you’re new knowledge isn’t so new!

Employing these methods of communication, translation and mediation enables an organization to become a boundary organization.

“These functions can be institutionalized in ‘boundary organizations’, organizations mandated to act as intermediaries between the arenas of science and policy. As originally conceived, boundary organizations have at least three features: (i) they involve specialized roles within the organization for managing the boundary; (ii) they have clear lines of responsibility and accountability to distinct social arenas on opposite sides of the boundary; and (iii) they provide a forum in which information can be co-produced by actors from different sides of the boundary through the use of ‘boundary objects’”

Note the emphasis on co-production, something we highlighted in our recent paper in Evidence & Policy.

So, we might as well all go home as in 2003 David Cash and his colleagues wrote all that I could ever want to write in 2009.  The challenge now is to practice what he preached.  York University, the University of Victoria and ResearchImpact are boundary organizations.  Our knowledge brokers have a foot in both (ok, many) camps and seek to continuously make boundaries pourous by increasing transparency allowing knowledge to be co-produced by researchers and decision makers.

Hold the date of February 9, 2010 for our 3^rd annual KM Expo that will feature discussions of boundaries and means of overcoming them.

Social Innovation – What Does this Mean?

A week or so ago we sent out a request for alternatives to “Social Innovation” as the output of knowledge mobilization. Faculty, knowledge brokers and community partners responded.  Since knowledge mobilization supports relationships between researchers and non-academic research stakeholders (community, voluntary, government and private sectors) the term “social innovation” failed to embrace some of the broad social, cultural, economic and environmental benefits that can result from engaged scholarship.  The idea of (re)defining “social innovation” was popular but our suggestions relating to the bottom line (or triple bottom line) were not.  This is fine as they did what they had to do.  They got you thinking.

Some identified concerns
-bottom line sounds like a static thing and I see what your trying to get at as an ever moving, ebbing and flowing concept
-Bottom line implies money saving to me which seems the antithesis of what you’re working towards
-I worry that the bottom line will predominantly resonate with private sector – with government and broader community it may not have the same appeal.  My interactions with government (provincial and municipal) suggest that while “bottom line” may be a factor it is often not the sole or primary one.
-The challenge with labeling as social innovation or any other term comes from the creation of a constraint that excludes
-If SI or KM cannot meaningfully contribute to social justice and decent livelihood’s for all

Some offered advice:
-you should take careful note of what your community partners think your description should be
-you want to come up with something that is a) understandable and b) easily connects with or has an impact on the group affected
-The core of what you are trying to do is create value for the sectors that are of most interest to you: economic, social, cultural and environmental.

Some provided analysis:
-There seem to be at least two kinds of things going on: 1) a concern by universities (and their funders) that the investments made in research are seen to have application to our communities and to society in general in more direct ways than they have traditionally done (KM) 2) efforts by universities to build new mechanisms for the creation of community-university research partnerships (and other kinds of partnerships as well)

And some provided perspective
-I like social innovation and I have no aversion to its association with business/commercialization. The only disadvantage is that it doesn’t include the natural sciences, or economic impacts. The impact of  KMb is broader than social

Many offered alternative suggestions which I have reframed as “Does Knowledge Mobilization…”
-Inform the triple bottom line
-connect Knowledge for Maximum Benefit
-create connected Knowledge that Swarms Bottom Line Thinking
-connect Knowledge to Assets that are Everlasting
-create connected Knowledge that Drives Positive Growth Everywhere
-produce socioeconomic impact
-result in benefit creation (offered twice, independently)
-produce community-University partnerships for change (ResearchImpact would need to modify community as KM embraces government and industry partnerships)
-support societal impact
-support change for society
-produce benefit capital

Now we’re on a second iteration of this effort and I am adding a few names to our list.

1. What do you think about this debate?  Is it valuable or should we just go away and use social innovation as the output of engaged scholarship because we all know what it means?

2. Do we need a term to more comprehensively yet clearly communicate the impacts of brokering relationships between researchers/students and their non-academic research stakeholder collaborators?  If so, what do you think of the other terms provided above?  What is the output/outcome of KM?

The KM Solution Pt 2: “So What”

The KM Solution Pt 2: “So What”

So what if cultural transparency is a problem: KM services, infrastructure and evaluation

In a previous blog we developed the thinking that cultural transparency (or a lack thereof) between researchers and their non academic research stakeholders is the underlying problem that challenges knowledge mobilization (http://researchimpact.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/the-km-solution-part-1-%E2%80%9Cwhat%E2%80%9D/).  Despite this sushi inspired analysis, one is forced to ask “so what”.  We know KM works.  We have published on the top 10 lessons learned from knowledge mobilization (http://researchimpact.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/what-do-machiavelli-and-dr-seuss-have-to-do-with-knowledge-mobilization/) so how does knowing the problem help with implementing the solution?

This deeper understanding allows us to refine services and develop infrastructure aimed at increasing cultural transparency and allows us to develop more robust evaluation protocols so that we can better demonstrate the impact of turning research into action.

Services: Understanding the problem of cultural transparency allows us to develop specialized services to address this barrier and foster research based relationships between researchers and their non academic counterparts.

• knowledge brokers to serve as cultural ambassadors supporting often challenging conversations and partnerships between researchers and non academic research stakeholders.
• support for engaged scholarship such as the Major Collaborative Research Initiative and Community University Research Alliance programs of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (www.sshrc.ca)
• training academics in clear language writing that makes research and researchers accessible to non academic research stakeholders such as ResearchImpact’s ResearchSnapshot series (www.researchimpact.ca/researchsearch)

Infrastructure: As identified in Part 1 (“What”), social media has a role to play in facilitating transparency by helping to form and support distributed networks in a community of practice model where loose connections must form before collaboration can begin. We have previously written (http://researchimpact.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/researchimpact-says-o3-is-an-overall-outstanding-opportunity/) about one social media platform, O3 that ResearchImpact is starting to use to link researchers and their partners.  Infrastructure can also include databases such as yaffle (www.yaffle.ca) and should link to existing tools that support access to research such as Canada’s Synergies project (http://www.synergiescanada.org/) and the CANARIE broadband network (www.canarie.ca).

“networks are the infrastructure for doing business in the future.”

Wierarchy, June 27, 2009

Evaluation: A better understanding of the problem (cultural transparency) allows us to develop a new logic model for KM.  Investing in services and infrastructure will result in one specific output: an increase in cultural transparency.  This allows us to construct outcomes based on increased cultural transparency including: collaboration, sharing (of people, information and resources), trust, relevance, access, awareness and engagement.  These outcomes then allow for the identification of impacts including changes in: behaviour of researchers and decision makers; reputation of the university and placement of HQP.  For each of these outcomes and impacts indicators can be developed and measured.

Application of social media to support communities of practice also allows consideration of an emerging metric, Return on Investment on Interaction (http://blog.wirearchy.com/2009/06/27/productivity-in-a-networked-era-assessing-roii-return-on-investment-in-interaction/) as a means of evaluating the impact of KM.  ROII is a way of measuring the creation of economic value out of intangibles including the value of an organization’s networks.  Intangible assets that are affected by interactions (networks, part of KM infrastructure) include brand, reputation, ideas, relationships and know-how but evaluating these softer assets requires social science evaluation methods such as surveys and focus groups rather than counting tangible assets such as dollars or square feet.  York is currently engaged in just such an evaluation employing social science methodologies to evaluate the last 3 years of York and UVic’s KM units and the ResearchImpact partnership.  Stay tuned closer to the end of 2009 for the results of that evaluation.

Understanding the “so what” of cultural transparency creates a theoretical underpinning of KM allowing us to develop and evaluate better KM services and infrastructure.  By enhancing cultural transparency knowledge mobilization is your passport to social innovation.

Stay tuned to Mobilize This! for the third and final installment of this series -The KM Solution: “Now What”

Cage Match: Tapscott vs. Weinberg (I’ll take them both, and the margarita…)

I just finished two books that have received a lot of press of late – Dan Tapscott’s “Grown Up Digital” and “The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web” by Tamar Weinberg.  “Grown Up Digital” is an exploration of the Net Generation (31 years old and younger) who grew up in the digital age while “The New Community Rules” explores the social media tools those NetGeners use and how they can be applied to marketing your business.

Let me say off the top that I enjoyed both books but for different reasons.  “New Community” gives detailed descriptions of social media tools including blogging, microblogging, social networking sites, social bookmarking, social news, new media (videos and photography) and informational social media such as wikis – and check the end of each chapter for the chapter summaries and a snapshot of key messages.  Each chapter explores a different aspect of social media with leading product offerings and case studies of how businesses have used each tool for marketing purposes.  “Grown Up” explores how NetGeners different from previous generations in education, work, consumerism, family, democracy and civic engagement.  Of note are the eight NetGen norms: freedom, customization, scrutiny, integrity, collaboration, entertainment, speed and innovation.

If you want to learn how to maximize your use of (and maybe return on investment in) social media you should read “New Community” but if you want to learn how to work or live with someone under 31 (and a lot of people over 31 as well) then you should read “Grown Up”.  Face it, you should read them both.

ResearchImpact has been blogging for over 1 year and on twitter since May 2009.  We have launched some knowledge mobilization videos and have more in production but I found the advice from Tamar Weinberg particularly useful, especially the chapter on blogging which has some great tips for new and experienced bloggers.  But working with ResearchImpact and the rest of the Office of Research Services at York University (www.research.yorku.ca) I work with a lovely and diverse group of staff from 20 to 62 years old.  The description of the Net Generation in “Grown Up” helps me manage the different work and life experiences that all staff bring to their jobs.

However, the comparisons need not stop at these books.  Both Tamar Weinberg (@tamar) and Don Tapscott (@dtapscott) are on Twitter and have 8672 and 8167 followers respectively (as of August 16, 2009) although Tamar has posted 3100 tweets to Don’s 858.  Both also have social media sites connected to their work.  Tamar can be found at www.techipedia.com and Don Tapscott’s site for his book is www.grownupdigital.com.  Both of these sites dig into their subject matter in different ways allowing the consumer to contribute and in Tapscott’s words become the prosumer.

If I were to be stranded on a desert island which book would I want?  If I had access to the internet I would want the “how to” information provided in “New Community Rules” but if I were trapped on a desert island with internet access and people under 31 I would want “Grown Up Digital”….of course if I were trapped on a desert island with internet access I’d just swim up to the pool bar of the resort and order another margarita because why else would I be on a desert island in the first place?

The KM Solution Part 1: “What”

If knowledge mobilization is the solution then what is the problem?

On June 18 I was at lunch with my friends from SSHRC Wayne MacDonald (Director, Corporate Performance and Evaluation) and Craig McNaughton (Director, Knowledge Mobilization and Program Integration).  We were enjoying sushi at Festival Japan discussing all things KM and research impact evaluation when Wayne asked me, “What is the problem to which KM is the solution”?

I stopped mid maki.

Having been a KM evangelist since I wrote our first KM grant application late in 2004 this should have been an easy question to answer.  After I finished masticating my maki I promised Wayne I’d get back to him with an answer.

I asked the knowledge brokers in the ResearchImpact network and we started a wiki and associate discussion.  I tweeted and got the following feedback from @petertwo:

“Sustaining innovation – nurture trust, design & implement collaboratively, monitor & adjust in real-time, share value”

I asked my friend and colleague Charles Ungerleider of the Canadian Council on Learning (Director, Research and Knowledge Mobilization) who said, “Put as succinctly as I can, the question to which knowledge mobilization is an answer is: How might the benefits of investments in research be enhanced?”

We then turned to the electronic equivalent of the library stacks and started reading some really interesting literature that took us to the “two communities” work of Nathan Caplan (American Behavioral Scientist (1979), Vol. 22, No. 3: 459-470).  Sandra Nutley and colleagues (www.ruru.ac.uk) pointed out the limitations of the two communities approach (Journal of Health Services Research & Policy (2008) Vol. 13 No 3: 188–190) so we looked to the university-industry literature on cultural difference to inform our thinking about KM as a bridge between the different cultures of research and action.

Julie Ferguson at CHSRF also discussed the cultural divide between researchers and policy makers in international development (www.chsrf.ca/brokering/pdf/digest_20070201_e.pdf).

If KM bridges this cultural divide then knowledge brokers are cultural ambassadors.

We were getting closer but still had a little way to go. What is the problem that manifests in cultural differences?

Transparency: Digging deeper we propose that a lack of transparency between researchers and decision makers reinforces this cultural divide. While researchers and decision makers might co-exist even within co-creative collaborations, our institutions continue to reinforce barriers to full participation. These cultural barriers include tenure & promotion, academic jargon, academic publishing, exclusivity of university libraries, exclusivity of graduate student dissertation committees which all privilege academic scholarship.

Knowledge brokers increase transparency by acting as guides to researchers seeking to step out of Ivory Towers and to decision makers reaching in. Etienne Wenger illustrates how to increase cultural transparency through participation in communities of practice (www.ewenger.com/pub/index.htm) and Christian Dalsgaard and Morten Flate Paulsen illustrate the power of social networking to enhance transparency in learning environments (International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (2009) Volume 10, Number 3:1-22).

So, Wayne, cultural transparency (or lack thereof) between researchers and decision makers is the problem to which knowledge mobilization is the solution.

An effective KM infrastructure including investments in knowledge brokers and social media to support communities of practice will increase transparency between researchers and decision makers and help turn research into action.

This is the first in a series of blogs on knowledge mobilization and cultural transparency. You’re read the “What”. Stay tuned for the “So What” and then “Now What” (thank you Levesque Peter Levesque)