How do we know if research and KMb make a difference? Taking the challenge of understanding our unique contribution.

Driving and taking part in knowledge mobilization (KMb) can be exciting and rewarding, but even when we feel it’s going really well, can we say we are really making a difference? It can be challenging to understand the sort of changes that this work contributes to, when it is often about influencing, inspiring, educating, or empowering people. Sarah Morton, Co-Director and founder of B-corp Matter of Focus, has been grappling with this challenge for many years and believes that it is really important for the KMb community to embed learning, reflection, evidence and assessment into KMb practice. By doing this, we can understand what difference we make, improve our impact, and tell our story to funders, institutions, stakeholders and the wider world. In this presentation she set out how she is doing this supported by a unique outcome and impact tracking software. She illustrated how the Outnav software can be used to track research impact within specific research projects as well as within organizations’ KMb units.