A few universities are considering joining the ResearchImpact network. I was asked recently to identify what a university might get for its annual membership fee of $5,000. Essentially, what is the value proposition for membership?
Quelques universités songent à se joindre au Réseau Impact Recherche. On m’a demandé récemment ce qu’une université membre pouvait attendre de son adhésion annuelle, au cout de 5 000 $. En clair : quelle est la proposition de valeur du Réseau ?
ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche (RIR) is Canada’s knowledge mobilization network with 12 universities from St. John’s to Victoria all investing in their own knowledge mobilization and related activities and all investing $5,000 annually to fund network operations. While we do not have an active recruitment drive we are always interested in speaking to universities who wish to learn from our diverse practices and contribute to the network so we can all grow our skills. What’s in it for you?
Part of the value proposition is articulated in our Strategic Plan.
Mission
• We build Canada’s capacity to be a leader in knowledge mobilization by developing and sharing best practices, services and tools, and by demonstrating to relevant stakeholders and the public the positive impacts of mobilizing knowledge.
Vision
• We will maximize the impact of university research for the social, cultural, economic, environmental, and health benefits across local and global communities.
Values
• We believe that academic research contributes to social, cultural, economic, environmental, and health benefits across local and global communities.
• We believe that the university research enterprise encompasses research, scholarship and creative activity by faculty, students and staff across all disciplines.
• We value community, industry and government partners as active participants in conducting research.
• We believe that knowledge mobilization services reflect the capacity and opportunities of institutional members.
Essentially we are a community of practice of institutional knowledge mobilizers all with different skills using different tools with different mandates in different organizational constructs. See the figure below that summarizes this diversity
It is this diversity that is the value proposition. You will learn from other universities to bolster your own practice and help maximize the impacts of your research. Some examples of our practices – there are more:
• Memorial Univesity: Strong focus on public engagement; use of yaffle.ca as a tool for knowledge brokering
• University of New Brunswick: Social Policy Research Network with a focus on knowledge mobilization to inform provincial policy
• Université du Québec à Montréal: Services aux Collectivitées – a community based knowledge brokering function
• Carleton Univesity: 1125 @ Carleton is a Living Lab model
• York University: Central Office of Research Services model including support for knowledge mobilization strategies in grant applications; research impact assessment
• University of Guelph: Research Shop model
• Kwantlen Polytechnic University: Service learning model
• University of Victoria: Research partnership model
Your $5,000 buys you access into these different practices so you can take from the network what fits in your context.
We believe that knowledge mobilization helps universities participate more fully in the federal government’s emerging innovation agenda which is being drafted around the core concept of inclusive innovation. We can more fully participate in inclusive innovation by connecting research in all disciplines to partners from all sectors (public, private and non-profit) to create impacts on local and global citizens. RIR is the only network in the world focused on institutional knowledge mobilization to maximize the impacts of academic research.
Membership has its privileges.
For more information about please email info@researchimpact.ca or email me directly at dphipps@yorku.ca.