York’s KMb Unit was one of two featured presentations at the March 24 Research Matters talk sponsored by the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. Research Matters is a monthly speaker series which highlights LA&PS researchers, their research and “the way they see the world”. Attendees represented several disciplines within LA&PS (did you know this Faculty, if you add all it’s faculty, staff and students, is the approximate size of McMaster University?!) and there was also guests from outside the University.
The KMb presentation focused on the following three overarching questions :
- What is Knowledge Mobilization?
- Why is Knowledge Mobilization important?
- How do we deliver KMb services at York?
One of the tenants of KMb is that the messenger needs to be a trusted source, and not to belittle the credibility of our unit, but it was felt that having faculty and external collaborators share their experiences to help answer these questions was more appropriate. As a result, I was able to show four videos which the KMb Unit has developed (you can watch them on YouTube here), all of which speak to the questions above. And like any successful KMb event, there were numerous one-on-one conversations afterward with attendees who were seeking a business card, had a question, or in one case, wanted to explore how KMb could assist with their research project.
The second presenter was Dr. Nick Mulé from the School of Social Work. He shared his numerous research projects around LGBT knowledge development and how he has integrated elements of Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Translation and/or Knowledge Mobilization (which he has coined as KTEM… not to be mistaken with KTEAM… or for those who remember, the A Team). Nick’s emerging interests in KMb, and how he is integrating KMb principles and practices into his research projects was my takeaway on the day. I was pleased to hear Nick share his skills and experience in engaged scholarship, demonstrating that it is possible to advance a scholarly career while engaged in community-based research. By integrating KMb principles and practices, Dr. Mulé successfully demonstrated that, in fact, Research Matters!
My sincere thanks to Associate Dean of Research, Barbara Crow and the Research Officers and support staff in LA&PS for the opportunity to share our work and extend the invitation of the KMb Unit as a service unit to support researchers and their collaborators.