Knowledge mobilization��helps us do research that is useful and used. But the field itself is fraught with a dizzying array of terminology and concepts, leaving researchers and their community partners unsure about what knowledge mobilization��means in their situation.

As a result, developing a knowledge mobilization��strategy takes thoughtful planning. And CFICE is happy��to help!

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Looking back at my time spent as a research assistant with the knowledge mobilization hub of the CFICE project, it’s hard to put to words the experiences I’ve had and the things I’ve learned. From having the opportunity to speak in front of experts in the field of KM, to dabbling in the logistics of patents and intellectual property, CFICE has provided experiences that I never would have thought available given my current academic and occupational direction. Indeed throughout my time with CFICE I have had the opportunity to help in organizing multi-community and multi-campus conferences, I have been able to attend conferences in differing parts of Canada, I gained valuable experience in dealing with large groups of people (especially time management skills in organizing meetings), and helped in the development of novel a KM tool (the Knowledge Mobilization Game). Along with these invaluable experiences I also was able to see firsthand the difficulties surrounding the implementation of knowledge mobilization both in and out of academia. For example, traditional avenues of knowledge dissemination are usually limited to publishing in relevant journals and perhaps attending a conference. Furthermore, aside from issuing surveys to potential users of knowledge it is difficult to measure the impact knowledge mobilization has on the community. Fortunately the former problem is slowly being addressed through changes in granting policies and the incorporation of KM strategies when attempting to secure funding.

Prior to my university studies at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University, were someone to ask me what knowledge mobilization was and what it entailed I simply would have told them that it was the movement of knowledge. Although not wrong, that assumption would fail to capture the essence as to what knowledge mobilization truly is. Knowledge mobilization is more than getting knowledge from one person to another. Knowledge mobilization is about putting research into action– it is about doing everything possible to ensure that that knowledge gets implemented in order to enact the best possible outcomes for a given situation.

Moving forward I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity continue my studies at the doctoral level. As I pursue further graduate work I do so with a greater understanding and appreciation for knowledge mobilization and what it truly entails. The usual avenues of knowledge dissemination and exchange, although tempting, are becoming insufficient in ensuring that the knowledge generated from research is actually implemented. Knowing this, and using the skills I have learned during my time with CFICE I hope to put my future research into the hands of those who will truly benefit from it and therefore ameliorate both the academic and public communities.

The experience wasn’t what I expected. Academic timelines rarely align with community timelines. The impact of knowledge mobilization is hard to measure, so it’s hard to justify to busy campus and community partners. I found it challenging to identify the target audience for knowledge mobilization products. I also struggled to wrap my head around the complexity and breadth of the CFICE project.

But, I leave CFICE more passionate about the value of knowledge mobilization than when I started. I participated in C2UExpo, and met inspiring people who strive to make research more relevant and useful to those who need it. I researched knowledge mobilization in my undergraduate honours essay, where I studied SSHRC’s annual reports. And, I’m excited to continue learning about knowledge mobilization this fall as I start my master’s in communication at Simon Fraser University.

Each step along the path of knowledge mobilization is challenging. Sometimes even frustrating, slow, or uncertain. But I believe we can harness the power of research to support meaningful social change. And I know knowledge mobilization is a vital journey to take.

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Years with Opportunities Waterloo Region: 10 years
Position: Executive Director

Years with CFICE: 2 years (since inception)
Position with CFICE: Poverty Reduction Hub- Project Partner

Background experience/education: B.A., Social Services Honours Diploma, over 25 years working in the social service field; and first-hand experience of living in different forms of poverty.

Primary Contributions

Project:

Opportunities Waterloo Region initiated���� ‘Shifting Societal Attitudes towards People Living in Poverty’ in 2007. We brought together community leaders from across Canada to explore what we could do to address this complex problem. The planning partners developed a strategy to examine deep-seated attitudes people hold towards individuals in poverty and develop a comprehensive, long-term plan to shift these mindsets in order to inform policy.

Because of a long-term partnership commitment between Dr. Terry Mitchell, of Wilfred Laurier University, and I, at Opportunities Waterloo Region, research was able to commence in 2011. The beginning phase focused solely on the student population. In the winter of 2012, aided by the CFICE partnership, we shared the initial results, a , with the community. Our most important finding to date – students’ attitudes had in fact shifted during the initial research- creating lots of excitement about the implications for the project’s future.

Continuing involvement with CFICE in 2013, the project partners received aid to broaden the scope of the research, including a larger portion of the public. This has included further data analysis, research instrument modification, and conducting online surveys. The next step is to develop workshop material that will share research findings and act as a mobilizing agent for deeper conversations within various sectors of government and community.

Conference Presentations & Publications:

1. MacKeigan, M., Mitchell, T., Stovold, A., Wiese J., and Sayal, R. (May 2014). ‘The Community Responsive University’. Integrated and Engaged Learning Conference; Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, ON.

2. Schwartz, K., Pei, N., Galloway, B., MacKeigan, M., (March 2014). ‘Models of Community Campus Partnerships’. Vibrant Communities Canada Gathering; Toronto, ON.

3. MacKeigan, M., Weise, J., Mitchell, T., Loomis, C. (September 2013). ‘Shifting Societal Attitudes towards poverty: Phase 1 Research Findings- Attitudes of University Students in Ontario, Canada’ Opportunities Waterloo Region.

4. Schwartz, K., Weaver, L., MacKeigan, M., Farnsworth, R., Leonard, P. (June 2013). ‘Campus Community Partnerships to Reduce Poverty’. CU Expo 2013; Corner Brook, Newfoundland.

5. MacKeigan, M., Mitchell, T., Wiese, J., Stovold, A., Loomis, C. (May 2013). ‘Shifting Societal Attitudes Towards People Living in Poverty’. 10^th Annual Community Conversation Series.

6. MacKeigan, M., Mitchell, T., Schwartz, K., Farnsworth, R., Galloway, B., (Fall 2012). Explaining the CFICE Partnership. McMaster University, Hamilton, ON.

What motivated you to get involved with CFICE?

Opportunities Waterloo Region was approached by the Poverty Reduction Hub’s community co-lead, Liz Weaver, because of the unique partnership research model with Laurier University and our attempt to shift attitudes towards poverty as a way to impact policy. It was an exciting opportunity to partner with a national initiative that aims to increase community strength by learning from the hub projects, to develop best practices for community-university partnerships. An unexpected but welcome outcome of this partnership was the injection of some project funding by CFICE. This funding strengthened our resources allowing for further research and increased outcomes.

What has been your greatest achievement with the project?

The research process has led to the revelation that the act of shifting attitudes might be achieved by advocating for mandatory poverty-related education at all levels, awareness-raising, and using the initial research findings to stimulate deeper community conversations with government and community sectors, rather than needing to completely understand what these deep attitudes are. Another exciting outcome surfaced when a perspective-taking research instrument was used for the second phase of the research. It provided me with a new tool with which to experiment when attempting to shift attitudes through experiential learning.���� The research information turned out to be more of a catalyst for shifting practices and policy by stimulating people’s thinking to explore on a deeper level and engage in reflective conversations.

How are you hoping to use this in the future?

Waterloo Region has an upcoming municipal election; I am working on developing a toolkit that will aid community leaders in implementing a workshop in which municipal candidates will be invited to attend. This workshop will enable us to stimulate deeper conversations with municipal candidates about societal attitudes towards people living in poverty. I wish to bring these reflections into the realm of conscious awareness in politics and the public. The goal is to positively influence outcomes that will truly benefit those of us who have the least in our society by providing elected officials a moment’s pause to reflect on what attitudes are motivating their decision-making. Ultimately, I hope communities will find the research useful to their goals of shifting public attitudes in order to change voting behaviour.

It is also hoped that other communities will use this or a similar strategy during the 2015 federal elections to bring the conversation about attitudes towards poverty to the national level. And I certainly hope that other community leaders from across Canada will use the research.

What big questions! Still, these are the questions I have been sitting with over the last few days at the Community-Campus Partnerships for Health conference in Chicago.

I have heard stories about the power of academic researchers – those who hold the purse strings of research projects that are intended to be “community-based”. I’ve seen academics cry as they speak of their inability to get their institutions and funders to get resources to community participants. I’ve heard about the informal navigation of power relations to ‘get things done’ by ‘bending the rules’. I’ve heard about the precarious position of student research assistants in projects. I’ve heard it ‘all depends’, that different forms of agency matters, that language matters, and that context matters. ��

These observations led me to want to break open the dichotomy of campus/community and really unpack the different types of agents involve in this work, the forms of power each has access to, as well as their vulnerabilities in these relationships. I’d like to see a table that includes public health institutions as well as networks of grassroots activists, students, professors, university research officers, and institutional funders and more. What forms of power does each of these actors encounter and/or mobilize in their day to day practices? ��Geri started such a table… maybe we can keep developing it collectively?

In the CFICE story-telling session and workshop on Thursday, we were given a lot of great ideas from participants at CCPH about how power ‘works’ in CCE, whether or not power-sharing needs to be explicitly addressed in this work, and some of the strategies that folks use to address questions of power in order to be fair to one another as well as effective. ��On the functioning of power, I found participants grounded in different theoretical approaches. For some power is ‘held’ by specific actors, for others it is ‘web-like’ and relational. Others envision power through metaphors like a merry-go-round. Power can mean churning around in circles without any sense of who is doing the spinning or why.

In the midst of all of this talk of power, we heard lots about how people work within power-relations to get the job done as best they can. These strategies included the informal ones, such as the centrality of relationship building and then working through the back channels of universities and other institutions to make CCE happen well. We also heard about formal mechanisms for ensuring power is shared, like partnership agreements, contracts with RAs, data-sharing agreements and the establishment of partnership principles. What a lot of great ideas to collect and examine for lessons��

These discussions led me to wonder about the strengths, and the limitations, of the various models that I see at work in CFICE. ��Again, another table comes to mind. I see so many forms of community-campus engagement, with different constellations of actors and roles. How capable are these various models at implementing the insights we’re learning about how to share power responsibly (both formally and informally)? Are some better, or at least more transferable, than others? What are the limitations of our models? ��(And what new models can such an examination get us to?)

Among the models I see at work in CFICE, we have a Violence Against Women hub that actively tries to keep its community partners out of the messiness of an academic research project with lots of institutional burdens. I understand why they do this, but does it mean that some important decisions don’t include the perspectives of key voices? I don’t know, but it may be worth further discussion by those most affected. Then we have the ‘brokerage’ models, which are varied in CFICE. The TCCBE has a particular way of working that sees their organization very much ‘between’ community and university. Connie Nelson and her team at the Food Security Research Network in Thunder Bay see themselves as working ‘in community’, bringing particular resources and capacities (e.g. mobilizing courses and students), but defining directions alongside others with a shared vision of the future. Then there is Katherine Piggott at Region of Waterloo Public Health�� who plays a facilitator role setting up internships and student placements. Her work is different structurally from the TCCBE and FSRN, but there are lots of similarities too. All work among other actors as ‘gate-keepers’ maybe, but are also ‘bridge-builders’ and ‘conveners’ (Katherine’s preferred word) of the work. Finally, we have various people who do the bridge-building work on their own, off the sides of their desks. Trish and I at �Ӱ�ԭ�� both do this in different ways.

The questions I set out at the top are really too big. There are various ways of thinking about power, different constellations of actors involved, and many ways of undertaking the work of CCE. Still, I feel like there is a question in all of this that we can tackle together as a way of starting the cross-hub analysis. Such work will allow us to see if we even have the vocabulary to talk with each other, and whether we’re gathering the data needed to make comparisons among models. It would build the space for dialogue so that we can learn from one another’s experiences and figure out what we’re getting from such a huge project that can ‘contribute’ to the bigger debate about whether and how CCE can do its part for progressive social change.

How can we hone our questions about power in CCE so that we have something we can really chew on together?

Reflections on power I community campus engagement – penned on May 3, 2014 by Peter Andrée, co-lead of the Community Food Security hub

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• Rigour and the Multiple levels of quantitative and qualitative analysis
• Rigour in methods and post-positivist paradigm shifting, and evaluation and
• Rigour in defining theory of change

Please view the full article��here.

Magda Goemans�������������������������������������������������������������������������� Michael Lait

The Community Environmental Sustainability (CES) Hub of the CFICE project aims to promote local actions that reduce carbon and ecological footprints, mitigate climate change, and lead to greater community resilience. For CES Academic Co-lead, Patricia Ballamingie, several skilled research assistants have helped her engage with community and not-for-profit groups on their sustainability projects and initiatives. “I help to connect the talents and expertise of my graduate students to groups within civil society seeking to advance sustainable community development,” says Ballamingie. What any given research assistant actually does is quite varied, and Magda Goemans and Michael Lait are two CES Hub research assistants that illustrate this point well. Both Magda and Michael have been involved in organizing projects related to environmental sustainability, but in different capacities.

Magda recently assisted a local neighbourhood organization, Sustainable Living Ottawa East (SLOE), in the planning and facilitation of its Deep Green Experts Forum. This event brought a wide variety of experts together to discuss opportunities and challenges associated with developing a prime area of urban greenspace in Old Ottawa East. SLOE is attempting to persuade developers to adopt more sustainable options for the site, including alternatives such as shoreline restoration, local connectivity, renewable energy, and affordable and seniors housing.

For Magda, organizing the forum has been a very intense but fulfilling experience. “I realized, when telling people about what I’ve been doing to prepare for the forum, how proud I am to be a part of this effort,” Magda says. “A great deal of energy has gone into making this event happen, but I think it can provide real inspiration to other neighbourhoods that are facing similar development issues.” Magda hopes to continue working with SLOE members into the summer months and beyond, as this RA work complements nicely with her doctoral research on community sustainability within �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Department of Geography and Environmental Studies (Magda’s research focuses more specifically on sustainability as it relates to climate change adaptation). As she explains: “I’ve worked with great community-based efforts as part of my professional background before returning to school, but in this case it’s been a particular thrill for me to observe the work of such a motivated and effective group.”

Michael’s role in the CES Hub is twofold. First, he is helping in the organization of the Ottawa Eco-Talent Network (OETN). The OETN is a start-up volunteer organization that provides pro-bono research and consulting services to community and not-for-profit groups on their sustainability projects and issues. Working as a CFICE RA for the OETN, Michael was mentored by an OETN advisor, Norman Moyer, a past Government of Canada Assistant Deputy Minister. Norman guided Michael through the preparation and delivery of the OETN’s business case, which was recently adopted by the OETN steering committee. “I didn’t go into sociology ever thinking I would produce a business case, but working with Norman has easily been one of the best experiences of my PhD so far”, Michael says. In the development of the business case, Norman and Michael facilitated a focus group with the client, the OETN steering committee, from which the organization’s goal, strategies, and plans were derived. Afterwards, Michael produced a report summarizing key themes and issues remaining in the OETN’s development. “The brainstorming session—held at Norman’s suggestion—was of immense benefit to the group’s formation and maturation: not only did it tease out subtle differences of opinion, but also showed the issues where consensus had been reached,” Michael added.

The second role Michael occupies in the CES Hub is that of a Knowledge Mobilization consultant, where he will profile community events, campus initiatives, and local issues on the CFICE KM blog. “I think that my doctoral research and work as a CFICE RA are actually linked through knowledge mobilization.” Michael’s research charts the formation of a conservation group, which contested the federal government’s planning and development of Gatineau Park in the late 60s. “I wonder if the Occupy Gatineau Park movement would have had more success if the earlier struggles of conservationists against the highway development were better known.” Michael went on to explain that, before road construction was underway in the mid-70s, conservationists had tried to convince the National Capital Commission of an alternate route, presenting the federal agency with a realignment plan prepared by a road engineer. “Scientific evidence and expert opinion often don’t influence official plans and policies, and I’d like my research to help identify political and institutional blockages to knowledge mobilization, and seek out ways of overcoming them,” Michael said.

I had the opportunity to participate in a knowledge brokering workshop – “Knowledge Brokering: Creating links between people and knowledge” – led by Peter Levesque, the founder and president of the Institute for Knowledge Mobilization. Coming into the workshop, I had some initial reservations about what to expect. I knew I would be learning about a subject matter that was relevant to my position at CFICE but the grand question still remained – how did the terms “knowledge brokering” or “knowledge broker” relate to me as a research and multimedia assistant? I had never encountered these terms during my three years in the Multimedia Design program. What impact would this workshop have on me?

During the course the workshop, I suddenly realized that I have been a “knowledge broker” in several cases throughout my work and educational experience and even more so here at CFICE. Being a knowledge broker is synonymous to an intermediary or mediator – one who develops relationships and facilitates the exchange of knowledge amongst organizations or groups.

With an understanding of the term, it is easy to dissect and analyze its components.

Knowledge. One can interpret “knowledge” in a general sense. But knowledge in itself can be categorical and varies depending the context and situation. My knowledge lies in the area of multimedia design and development (i.e. graphic design, web development, etc.) In now knowing what my expertise is, how can I transfer my technical/design skills and add more value as a broker?

Broker. At CFICE, I’ve taken on tasks that focused on centralizing information (or “knowledge”) and ensuring accessibility amongst all hub members whether it’s via the organizational sites, the shared drive, or online tools.

For the Community First organizational site, I was responsible for restructuring and reorganizing the site layout and content so as to facilitate accessibility and readability of information for all members. This further led to the development a “News” page section pertaining to each hub as well as a centralized news page for CFICE.

Furthermore, in an effort to organize CFICE’s files and documents, I proposed a file management system that reflected the structure of the organization. With the file hierarchy, it allowed for the grouping of information in a meaningful and comprehensive way. This management proposal would guide and standardize the manner in which files and documents would be handled in an online domain.

A future database management project would also allow for all hub parties to share and revise information regarding report submissions and the status of publications. With such collective knowledge, the only way it can grow or increase in value is if all parties are aware, informed, and collaborative.

In the multimedia context, I help in aiding the sharing and exchange of information amongst groups. In that respect, I consider myself to be a knowledge broker. I contribute to the development of the organization’s social and media network and provide that chain to all CFICE members.