Peter: Is there anybody that's currently doing it well in your opinion within the research community in Canada? Ben: I'd say there's some people who do quite well….Doug Wilms I would say, is an example of someone who's able to do the whole package…it's quite unusual in that way. Some of the other kind of big name people; Clyde Hertzman – these are people who have kind of set themselves up to be policy entrepreneurs and so they've paid attention to it because they're very interested in getting their work used. Peter: What about at an institutional level? Are there any institutions that you would see that are doing a better job at this?
Ben: Not yet – I haven't looked everywhere but I haven't seen anyone…..York is making some real efforts on this but I haven't seen any university yet that has what I would call a really well developed infrastructure for supporting that kind of work. Peter: Somebody else I was talking to said that in many ways this is supply and demand – that there's lots of supply of data and research on one point but there's not a clear demand from the people that it's being pushed upon. Do you think that's a reasonable perspective? Ben: I do believe that it is important to pay attention to both the supply and the demand and I think that the idea that you can do this, only through the supply side, is wrong. So it is the case in education that even if we had the best, most accessible education research in the world, our school systems aren't set up to use it. TELEPHONE PAUSE… Ben: So school systems don't have the take-up capacity and ministries don't either, but this is partly a matter of realizing how it works. As I've said to many researchers - you don't get your research used by sending it to the Minister. Once it's out there in the broader community, then it becomes part of the political process - gets taken up, then political people become interested in it. Peter: This is not something that most researchers are very good at – they have self-selected into a system and they're researchers. So part of what I'm hearing and what you're saying within universities is that there has to be the equivalent of technology transfer for the social sciences and humanities. Ben: Yes Peter: What are some of the principle elements of what that would look like in your opinion? Ben: Well that's something that I'm just really starting to think through but I would say that you need an orchestrated campaign in which you identify target groups and you reach out to them in a whole variety of ways which would involve combinations, as I've said before - face to face because I think in all the ‘foofara' about technology, we've lost sight of the fact that it's actually interpersonal connections that are the most powerful things. And in fact they are the, in my mind, they are the keys that unlock the technological processes – technology will work when people know each other. If they don't know each other, it's much less likely to work. Peter: So processes that facilitate that face-to-face – meaningful face to face Ben: Yes so you got to create contacts between people so that they know about each other and they know about each others work, they have opportunities to meet and talk. And then you've got to support that with other kinds of vehicles, such as various kinds of reports whether they're written, whether they're electronic – whatever the case may be, right. And then you have to have sustained contact on particular themes over time because one thing we know is it takes years and years and years to move public thinking on issues, but it can be done.
Peter: So the question of time, I think, is actually really important. When I talk to researchers they're constantly tell me how pressed they are for time. So how do you build this in to a research process or is it really not them – that there's an intermediary or a broker that acts…that's maybe the person that is the face. Ben: Most of the time, I think it will be the latter.
Peter: Okay.
Ben: You will get a few researchers who, as I said, the Doug Wilms of the world who understand this and can do it. Most researchers aren't either interested or capable. Peter: Okay, so if there are intermediaries, in your mind, when you picture these people, what are they like? What are their characteristics? What are their, kind of dominant… Ben: Most of the time they're not people, they're organizations. Peter: Okay.
Ben: So they are the many organizations that already exist that have as a mission doing some of that bridging. If you look at education, you've got all the stakeholder groups, the school trustee groups, the teacher union groups, the parent groups, the school administrator and school principal groups – all of which are interested. Then you have other 3rd party organizations like the Canadian Education Association or CCL or various other, kind of professional bodies. Then you have what I would call the popularizers – the people who make their living by talking about these ideas. They go around, they do professional development workshops - they're really important to the process too because when you ask educators what they know about research and how they know it….mostly that's how they know it – they didn't read the original research, they heard someone talking about it or they read and article about it. And then the media of course so that's another whole big chunk that we haven't talked about. Peter: Okay, maybe you need to talk about that right now.
Ben: Well, most people get a lot of their ideas about public policy through the media so you actually need sustained attention to talking to media folks also about important policy issues. So that they get to learn the data and the evidence better and they start to use it.
Peter: Right, so how do you do that? How do you talk to media in a sustained way when there are so many issues competing?
Ben: Well I don't know if anybody knows the real answer to that but if you look at the work that some foundations have done in various places or political interest groups have done to shape opinion, you start to see that. So if you take bodies of education at the Fraser Institute or CD Howe, they work at it pretty hard – they've got stuff out there all the time, they're doing broadcast stuff, they've got press releases, and they package it in the way that engages media interest. So it gets pick-up. They present themselves as spokespeople and are taken up as spokespeople.
Peter: One of the criticisms in the media though, is that they misconstrue the evidence.
Ben: Sure, of course.
Peter: Okay so how can that….is that just part of the terrain that you have to travel over and there's nothing that you can do about it? Ben: There's nothing you can do about it in the grand sense – that's true – ya, that's going to happen. Peter: Some of the things that I've heard from people is that there needs to be more leadership around learning, around the use of evidence and decision making. What are…what do you think people mean in terms of leadership? You've pointed to organizations as taking on leading roles and then some individuals say that there has to be people – actual individual people that are THE leaders. Ben: Well there have to be people that care about this but there are lots of people who care about it. I don't think that's the problem - I think the problem is more infrastructure. I don't think the problem is people don't understand what needs to be done or don't believe it should be done. I think the problem is primarily we just haven't yet created the infrastructure to do it. Peter: Okay, who do you see as some of the - speaking of leadership – who do you see as some of the people who are building that infrastructure?
Ben: Well, I talked about this already but I think that it's a combination of people in universities, people in government and people in 3rd party organizations with the 3rd parties having the particularly important role just because they sit in between. Peter: Right – okay. Universities, I think, are an important piece – it has come up in other conversations, that there are other post secondary institutions - colleges, community colleges, that have a role to play here. Do you see them as playing a role in this context or more in terms of training people?
Ben: No, because the two are related and training is one of the main areas in which actually, research gets taken up. People come out of training programs - that often gives them a lifetime perspective on both the use of research and the actual content of the evidence so we should not ignore training at all as a really important part of knowledge transfer process.
Peter: So do you see a growth of more relationships between colleges and universities as part of that process?
Ben: Could be. Colleges are not primarily research generators - universities are research generators but colleges are important sites for take-up of research and evidence, yes - as they train people.
Peter: One of the challenges that has been pointed to in both health and education is that between the provincial governments and the federal governments and they play different roles. Can you talk a little bit about the challenges of universities happening at a provincial level, often funded by federal - and that decisions get made at both levels?
Ben: Well in education the federal role is pretty small. Even in post secondary, it's pretty small. They've managed to get quite a bit of bang with very limited dollars but the vast bulk of the money that supports post secondary education in Canada is provincial money. Even though some of it comes through federal transfers….so if you look at what the Federal Government puts into PSE on a yearly basis, compared to what the provinces put in – it's small. Peter: Does the Federal Government…that infrastructure that we were talking about that is needed – do you see the Federal Government playing a role in that?
Ben: Oh sure – CCL is one example of that and there's lots more that could be done because it doesn't take big infusions and resources actually - quite small amounts of money could leverage large amounts of activity. Peter: What you would suggest that are the priorities – where the resources should be put from a federal perspective?
Ben: There are various things around supporting the infrastructure for knowledge mobilization that I think squarely…could squarely fall within federal jurisdiction. So the kind of the things that granting councils do for example, the granting councils could do much more of this then they currently do.
Peter: Okay.
Perhaps point to some of the ideas…some of the things that the granting councils could do that they're not currently doing. Ben: Well supporting some of the infrastructure in universities – the extension of some of what was done in the INE – not so much the research side as the knowledge mobilization side of it, which is as far as I can see, kind of died at SSHRC - doesn't seem to be on the agenda there anymore for whatever reasons. Just the effort to bring people together and even supporting some research around the kind of thing you're doing because one thing about knowledge mobilization is that there are tons of ideas and almost no empirical evidence on any of it. You talked about the lack of empirical evidence on the electronic side but frankly there's very little empirical evidence around any of it. So even to support some work that said “alright who's using websites and what are they doing with what they find there, what face to face events that are actually happening – what do people take away from those, how do they get processed” – the media relations issue. There are many, many issues in which we actually need more empirical evidence and more experimentation.
Peter: Do you see…I mean are you hopeful that this is what's coming about or is it one of these conversations that everyone says we need it but nobody's going to take the lead on? Ben: No, I think a lot is happening in a very disbursed way. There would be a lot to be done from trying to bring people together more and learn but there is a lot happening - in Canada and beyond. The NCEs are another really interesting vehicle where Canada has some real leadership. Having put together these NCEs - actually to learn more about what they've tried to do and how it's worked, would itself be an interesting activity. But there there's lots of interesting stuff going on – tons - you can't keep up with it all. Peter: Right – absolutely. What do you see to be – some of the challenges that are coming out. When you think about this long-term, what do you see as the benefits to Canada of engaging in more of this type of activity?
Ben: Ah well, the big benefit is that you get better public policy and you get more effective use of public resources. If we find out it makes more sense to invest our money on A instead of B, that's a very big return. If we can improve outcomes for the same amount of money, that's a very big benefit. So those are the benefits – it's doing a better job. Ben: Getting better results.
Peter: Getting the full value for what we know.
Ben: Yes.
Peter: That's actually one of the challenges – one of the things we've talked about is that there actually has to be capacity building of going from what we know to what we do. Ben: Yes, and that's the hard part. Peter: Absolutely. If you were talking to somebody who was just entering into university right now and this was a topic of conversation that said, “Okay we're going to teach you lots” But if you were to provide advice to somebody and said, “okay, in order to increase the value of what we're teaching you, and what you will produce through your processes”, what sort of advice would you give them in terms of their career path? What sort of – how do you move from what you know to what you do in a practical sense if somebody is trying to figure it out in terms of their own career path?
Ben: Ya that's a good question and I'm not sure I have a good answer to it. I would say there's a benefit for people working in more than one setting. There's a big benefit to having spent some time on the research side and having spent time on the policy and practice side. That gives you a much deeper understanding of how the two sides fit together because otherwise they are so different. People in the research community just have no feel for what government is like.
Peter: Are there good places that allow that sort of…opening that sort of experience, other than taking the kind of personal initiative or personal path that you have?
Ben: I would say not really. You've got to find that – it not impossible to do – governments are very interested in exchanges and internships but they're always practical barriers to doing it. Peter: So more work on moving some of those practical barriers?
Ben: Absolutely.
Peter: Okay.
Ben: Creating more opportunities for people to travel across would be good.
Peter: Okay – I see that you have a crystal ball on the corner of your desk and so I'd like you to think sort of ten years forward. If you were to …given that there has been a lot of movement over the last ten years in terms of this discussion, what do you see as some of the most promising directions over the next ten years? Where do you see this interface between research, evidence and decision-making being in ten years?
Ben: Well I would hope that we know a lot more and be a lot better at sorting out what is more and less effective. For example we're still in a mode where everyone wants to build a website for everything and I'm not meeting a lot of people whose big problem is they have too much free time and not enough websites to visit. Peter: Right.
Ben: So okay, are websites the right vehicle and if they are, what about them makes them engaging and makes people want to be there and make use of them. I think there's a lot that we can and will learn about that - about the merits of different forms of communication and relationship building. So we'll get better at targeting our efforts into things that make a difference. Peter: Okay, I think we're at the end of the formal questions, I'm just wondering if there is anything that you wouldn't want to add or anything that we haven't discussed or any questions that you have? Ben: No, I think it's just a really exciting time to be working in this area. I think we will see a lot of change. There needs to be much more conceptual work – I'd say that too and I've said that earlier, we don't even have good language for what we're talking about. This is something that we talked about when we were doing the INE stuff. We still talked about research producers and users but actually it's a much more two-way relationship than that. We don't have good language and we don't have good language because we don't really have good conceptual frameworks yet for thinking about this….so we need both the conceptual and the empirical work to proceed at the same time. Peter: Great – Ben, as always it's been a pleasure, thank you very much. Ben: Ya Peter: Alright Ben: Good
