Author : Corina MacDonald
Knowledge mobilization (KMb) is a policy discourse and framework used by major Canadian research funding bodies to promote and monitor the efficiency of knowledge transfer between the university and society. Since 2009, most humanities and social science (HSS) researchers applying for federal funding must complete a KMb module that describes their intended non-academic collaborators and audiences, planned outreach activities, and metrics to gauge their success.
The ideals of public engagement set out in KMb policy are worthy ones for scholars to strive towards. The framework can also provide legitimation for a diverse range of research practices, relationships, and outputs. Applicants must think about sharing their work throughout the research process rather than simply at its end. This introduces a more expansive understanding of the relations of knowledge producers and their publics than is found in Canadian open access policies and mandates.
Many practices commonly understood as open research, such as data sharing, diamond open access publishing, or sharing via blogs or podcasts, would be considered knowledge mobilization activities, as would practices of community-engaged research or knowledge co-production. KMb policy thus governs much of the making public of humanities research in Canada; however, it embodies conflicting ideas about the value of shared knowledge. Its emphasis on knowledge as transferable imposes temporal, material, and cognitive restrictions on scholarship.
Critics of KMb dismiss it as performative and a tool of institutional governance or argue that it quantifies research as a return on investment. The critiques and possibilities of knowledge mobilization policy offer insight into wider contemporary struggles over the meaning of openness for HSS research. This article explores its impact on Canadian HSS scholars in relation to critical debates about changing relations of knowledge, labor, and value in humanities scholarship.
