Knowledge Mobilization Cluster

The Knowledge Mobilization Cluster is one of the Knowledge Sustainability clusters of the Staging Better Futures/Mettre en scène de meilleurs avenirs project. These clusters, which also include Knowledge Synthesis, Archiving, and Governance Study, serve and steer the project around matters that affect all participants and beneficiaries, in collaboration with the project Co-directors.

Broadly stated, Knowledge Mobilization (KM or KMb) is the sharing of knowledge with communities and individuals beyond a research project itself. It’s about making sure that the outcomes of research projects reach their intended audiences. There are a number of related names for such activities within academia, including knowledge transfer, knowledge sharing, knowledge brokering, knowledge translating, and knowledge exchange. 

Overall, the work of the SBF/MSMA KM committee is to support clusters in creating KM plans, and where relevant and necessary, to help them implement them. Our work also involves research and intervention into existing understandings and practices of KM, and as such we are also producing new knowledge which we also intend to mobilize.   

In the first year of the project, the KM committee constituted and oriented itself, and created a working list of KM activities relevant to the project. 

For the remainder of  Phase 1 of the project (Years 2 and 3), the SBF/MSMA KM Cluster is first of all exploring histories, practices, and philosophies of KM, and considering these within the principles and goals of our project. We are undertaking such exploration and consideration with these two key questions in mind: 

1. What is the relationship of the core premises of SBF/MSMA – that the success of the project will be the uptake of wise practices around decolonization/anti-racism/equity, diversity, and inclusion (DC/AR/EDI) so as to improve conditions for minoritized students and educators in theatre higher education in Canada – to existing practices of knowledge mobilization in higher education?
2. Are there extant wise practices for approaching knowledge mobilization in the way that our project intends to do? 

Our approach to KM, as is SBF/MSMA as a whole, is informed by the concept of wise practices, which Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux and Brian Caillou define as “locally-appropriate actions, tools, principles or decisions that contribute significantly to the development of sustainable and equitable conditions” (19). Wise practices take seriously the specific cultural, socioeconomic, geographic, linguistic, etc. position of the community that is the intended beneficiary of the work, calling upon the “many gifts and strengths in a community that strategies for growth can build upon” (Caillou 2012, 18). Wise practices remind us that each community’s foundation is different and great pains must be taken to understand and work from those specific foundations. Given this, the way in which different groupings within the SBF/MSMA Partnership engage with KM will differ, depending on their specific circumstances, identities, and goals.  

The KM Cluster is therefore proceeding with the understanding that the work of each of the project’s research clusters will be different and community-specific and that we cannot offer a one-approach-fits-all solution for project KM. 

Our overall aims for Phase 1 are to:

• explore histories, practices, and philosophies of KM, and consider these within the principles and goals of our project;
• develop and circulate a clear and flexible articulation of KM wise principles for the project;   
• survey Research Clusters, along with other Knowledge Sustainability Clusters, for their activity plans for Phase 2 (Years 4-6) of the project, understanding that KM plans will be part of these activity plans; 
• support clusters in creating KM plans, and where relevant and necessary, help them implement them
• Articulate a working KM plan for the project as a whole;   
• Continue to update the working list of KM activities relevant to this project  

In Phase 1, the KM Cluster’s membership includes Shawn DeSouza-Coehlo, Karen Fricker, Chelsea Jones, Michelle MacArthur, Melissa Poll, and Mireille Tawfik.