Abstract
BackgroundTo increase the uptake of research evidence in practice, responsive research services have been developed within universities that broker access to academic expertise for practitioners and decision-makers. However, there has been little examination of the process of knowledge brokering within these services. This paper reflects on this process within the AskFuse service, which was launched in June 2013 by Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, in North East England. The paper outlines the challenges and opportunities faced by both academics and health practitioners collaborating through the service.MethodsThe authors reflected on conversations between the AskFuse Research Manager and policy and practice partners accessing the service between June 2013 and March 2017. Summary notes of these conversations, including emails and documents relating to over 240 enquiries, have been analysed using an auto-ethnographic approach.FindingsWe identified five challenges to knowledge brokering in an institutional service, namely length of brokerage time required, limits to collaboration, lack of resources, brokering research in a changing system, and multiple types of knowledge.ConclusionsTo understand and overcome some of the identified challenges, we employ Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective and argue for making better use of the distinction between front and back stages in the knowledge brokering process. We emphasise the importance of back stages for defusing destructive information that could discredit collaborative performances.
Highlights
To increase the uptake of research evidence in practice, responsive research services have been developed within universities that broker access to academic expertise for practitioners and decision-makers
We apply Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective to these challenges, which present them in a new light, suggesting that the challenges can be better understood as differences in performances by academics, practitioners and policy-makers that need to be effectively managed by responsive research services
We identified five challenges in the brokering process of institutional services like AskFuse, related to brokerage time, scarcity of resources, lack of institutional incentives and willingness of academics to collaborate with health professionals, and ongoing structural changes in the United Kingdom health system
Summary
To increase the uptake of research evidence in practice, responsive research services have been developed within universities that broker access to academic expertise for practitioners and decision-makers. This paper reflects on this process within the AskFuse service, which was launched in June 2013 by Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, in North East England. The paper outlines the challenges and opportunities faced by both academics and health practitioners collaborating through the service. Knowledge brokering: opportunities and challenges The need for closer interaction between those working in public health policy and practice and researchers has long been recognised [1]. The ways that public health practitioners can effectively relate to, interact with, undertake and commission research from university researchers to support the development of evidence-based practice are not clear. The Centre for Research on Families and Relationships was established between several Scottish universities at least partly to improve research use and linkages between research and policy [9]
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