The The Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research (KNAER) marks an ambitious effort to strengthen relationships between research, policy and practice in education in Ontario. Due to an overwhelming response, KNAER has been extended to March 2013. Currently, all available funds for the network are committed to projects occurring between now and March 31st, 2013. 120+ PARTNERSHIPS WHAT WE ARE LEARNING
In just nine months since KNAER launched, 44 projects have been approved that involve diverse partnerships of over 120 organizations across the sector, totalling in over $2 million dollars of funding. An interim report is available at (http://www.knaer-recrae.ca/reports/knaer_report.pdf).
44 PROJECTS APPROVED
PROJECT CATEGORY
MAXIMUM AWARD
APPROVED
1) Exploiting current research more effectively
$100,000.00
9
2) Building or extending networks for further research in priority areas
$100,000.00
8
3) Strengthening research brokering across a) Universities and b) Ontario partners
$25,000.00
17
4) Visits by world leading researchers
$25,000.00
7
Host Institution Projects
$50,000.00
3
TOTAL
44
These projects represent partnerships across the province between school districts, universities, colleges, and other educational intermediaries including:
What the proposals from the sector showed us is that while there was considerable interest in mobilizing knowledge from research, there is limited understanding of what such work entailed, either on the side of what was to count as ‘knowledge’ or what was to count as ‘mobilization’. Of course that should not be surprising; one goal of the KNAER is to build capacity to do the ongoing work of research mobilization. Since this work is relatively new, we expected to find that many projects would go only partway either in assessing the knowledge base on in their strategies for sharing reliable knowledge about education policy and practice. Even where organizations understand what KM means, concrete strategies and plans are challenging to create and many of the inquiries we received revolved around these issues.
Proposals seemed to be stronger when third party organizations (that is, not just university researchers or school system leaders) played an important role. These third party organizations often have a more explicit focus on knowledge sharing. The higher approval rating (as well as higher quality of proposals from intermediaries) potentially shows a deeper understanding and also the network building necessary to mobilize research across diverse organizations; in fact, many of these organizations already have strong networks and media relations across the province.
NEXT STEPS
As the many KNAER projects ramp up across the province, the focus of the network will be on how best to share what we are learning across projects. Although each project is about mobilizing research knowledge, the sophistication of these efforts varies considerably so the Network as a whole has an interest in ensuring that projects use the best possible techniques within their field and resource parameters. The network will also be creating various support materials for projects to use that will attempt to build deeper understanding and capacity on how to mobilize research knowledge across the province, so that it might be better incorporated in classrooms to the benefit of Ontario students.
KEY PEOPLE
The University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario continue to collaboratively manage KNAER. Key people at each institution include:
Funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education
