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Scholarship in action
Knowledge mobilization and the academic process
For Georges Dionne, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management at HEC Montréal, knowledge mobilization is a natural extension of his academic work.
For more than two decades, Dionne has been researching tools that increase Canada's economic competitiveness through financial risk management.
“I develop decision models and financial instruments that help people and firms improve their financial security,” he explains.
But, his scholarship does not end there. Working in partnership with government and private organizations, such as the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the province of Quebec and large international insurance companies, Dionne ensures his research gets put into action for the benefit of society.
For example, his work on insurance fraud created a model that helped a European company reduce insurance fraud by 40 per cent. Another project on road-safety risk management resulted in a new model for auto insurance that has been used successfully in Quebec for more than 15 years.
Dionne is not alone. Knowledge mobilization—the act of moving research results into the hands of research users—is becoming an integral part of the academic world.
Jill Scott, a professor of German at Queen’s University, is a fierce supporter of knowledge mobilization and of connecting academic research with the Canadian public.
“As scholars in the humanities, our depth and breadth of knowledge is valuable,” she says. “Personally, I’ve invested too much work into my research to only have a few readers of an academic journal ever see it.”
Currently completing a book that uses examples from literature, film and photography to investigate the role of forgiveness in the 20th century, Scott says her research provides greater insight into the human experience and can help people understand what’s happening in their own lives. But this is just part of what motivates her to present her research to the public.
“It’s much more satisfying to package research in different ways for different audiences; you get more bang for your buck,” she explains. “Besides it is not just a one-way street. The comments I get from the public are invaluable. They offer new perspectives and inform how I think.”
Scott’s enthusiasm is no surprise to Craig McNaughton, director of SSHRC’s new knowledge mobilization and program integration division.
“Knowledge mobilization has become a core priority for SSHRC,” he explains. “This is due to increased interest in the value of knowledge shared across academic and non-academic sectors.”
SSHRC’s overall objective is to increase the positive impact of social sciences and humanities research on individuals, businesses and communities in Canada and around the world. Knowledge mobilization is a clear pathway to this goal as it helps integrate the campus and community, and creates new avenues for discussion and understanding.
“Canada has the potential to take major strides forward in social and intellectual engagement across sectors and fields that traditionally have tended not to pool their knowledge resources,” says McNaughton. “We are working with the research community to identify ways to support this broader, mutually beneficial engagement.”
A key challenge is keeping the definition of knowledge mobilization flexible enough to benefit from both innovative approaches to knowledge dissemination and production, as well as the range of traditional activities scholars engage in every day.
“Our research community is already communicating and producing their research in many different ways,” he says. “It is SSHRC’s job to sustain and extend that work in order to support top-quality scholarship and serve the public interest.”
When asked what she does that could be considered knowledge mobilization, expert in workplace bullying, Judy MacIntosh at the University of New Brunswick, easily rhymes off a list that ranges from research projects developed and carried out in partnership with community practitioners to plain language websites and radio call-in shows.
“And, of course, I teach,” she says. “There are so many opportunities to bring my research into classroom discussions.”
Like Scott, MacIntosh feels the process of getting her research into the hands of others does as much good for her as it does for them.
“It is a strong motivator. Seeing how people respond and hearing their own stories really gives you the sense that you can make a difference in people’s lives,” she says. “Their stories also help me confirm my own theories. They can point to new avenues of study, and sometimes, if you’re not on the right track, they’ll tell you that too.”
“Knowledge mobilization is not new to researchers,” says David Phipps, who is the director of the office of research services at York University and whose work is funded in part through a SSHRC Knowledge Impact in Society grant. “What’s new is that we’re developing the institutional capacity to support these activities.”
Like similar divisions at the University of Victoria and Memorial University of Newfoundland, Phipps’ office acts as a type of knowledge broker between York researchers and the community and government officials seeking out their expertise. It also helps researchers developing proposals for large-scale projects find partners outside academia and craft comprehensive strategies.
“The strategies most people defer to for knowledge mobilization are traditional, such as creating a website, but not necessarily appropriate to the audience they want to reach,” he says. “The richness within knowledge mobilization needs to be culture-specific as well as context-specific.”
York’s knowledge mobilization division, which opened in 2006, has supported researchers who have secured more than $11 million in research funding. He believes SSHRC’s interest in supporting this work is well timed.
“Technology transfer was transformed by investments in institutional capacity and expertise,” he says. “It’s now time to do the same thing in the realm of public policy and community practice.”
McNaughton agrees. “Knowledge mobilization intensifies the social and economic value of research,” he says. “Our society, and its capacity for innovation, hinge on our ability to understand and work with one another in new ways.”
