Professor Huw DaviesOutgoing DirectorSocial Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI)Universities of Dundee & St Andrews

DirectorKnowledge Mobilisation

Using evidence for improving services

High quality, user-driven research

production

Effective mobilisation of the knowledge

created

Building the absorptive

capacity of the system to use knowledge

CEO

“Yes, it’s quite a noise – but are we having any impact?”

The challenge for all of us in the knowledge business…

Knowledge Production/UseThe traditional linear model:

Knowledge creation

Knowledge

validation

Knowledge disseminatio

n

Knowledge

adoption

Researchers

Users

‘KT’

--- THE PROBLEM WITH THIS MODEL ---Too - simple, rational, linear, uni-directional, individualised, unproblematised, asocial, and

acontextual (otherwise, OK…)

Research priorities

For some, research evidence = “what works” data

i.e. Systematic reviews (and meta-analysis) of (preferably, double-blind, randomised control) evaluations -- or the next best thing that’s available.

So, what IS Research EVIDENCE?

➮ Instrumentalist knowledge: making choices

➮ Quality assessment based mainly on methodological considerations

➮ Simple technical task of data integration

Broader sense of ‘social research’– i.e. any systematic process of

critical empirical investigation and evaluation, theory building, analysis and codification relevant to our organisational world…

(AND it’s not just academic researchers that do this kind of thing anyway…)

Robust knowledge wider than ‘research’…• Research &

evaluation reports

• Audit & inspection findings/data

• Routine monitoring data/KPIs

• Local & international exemplars

• Costings data

• Client & user experience data

• Expert views & insider knowledge

• Opinion polls & stakeholder consults

• System capacity & implementation issues

• Models & forecasts

➮ Challenge of accessing and integrating across…➮ Who has – perspective? skills? tools? authority?

Knowledge required for effective services is much broader than simply “what works”

• Know-about (problems): e.g. the nature, formation, natural history and interrelations of health and social problems…

• Know-why: explaining the relationship between values and policy/practice…

• Know-how (to put into practice): e.g. pragmatic knowledge about serviceand programme implementation…

• Know-who (to involve): e.g. service team composition; building alliances for action…

➮ Enlightenment knowledge problematising, re-framing…➮ Methodological pluralism contentiousness➮ Engagement with values politics

Research Evidence Knowledge - very uncertain process; engages with values, existing (tacit) knowledge, and experience…

- socially and contextually situated…

- may require some difficult ‘unlearning’.

Challenge of integrating “knowledge”

And, not just what knowledge/evidence, but crucially, whose knowledge/evidence?

- ‘evidence’ may be used selectively/tactically

- knowledge/power intimately co-constructed➮ Significant limits to stable acontextual knowledge creation

Key message for social research:

Thus recognising:• importance of dialogue in context;

• interaction with other types of knowledge (tacit; experiential);

• knowledge ‘use’ as ongoing process.

…moving us away from ideas such as research as “answers”, “packaged knowledge”, and “doing knowledge transfer”.

Social and interactive models – models that integrate knowledge creation and use – these better reflect what actually happens…

Social and interactive models…

- these challenge us to develop and sustain some unusual interactions!