Prior to this project, I knew little about knowledge mobilization, and even less about the process of creating a research award.
According to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, knowledge mobilization is “an umbrella term encompassing a wide range of activities relating to the production and use of research results, including knowledge synthesis, dissemination, transfer, exchange, and co-creation or co-production by researchers and knowledge users.” It was motivating for me to know that the aggregated data from my work would be critical in developing an award that would encourage and reward knowledge mobilization efforts.
This project was much in line with some of my goals for this co-op experience, such as improving technical skills and building on my problem-solving abilities such as deciding what information or data would be useful to include in my research.
Fig. 1 My workspace; a split screen was helpful for the research process
We began the project with brainstorming, bouncing ideas off of each other on what category headings would be important for gathering data about a knowledge mobilization award, and from this I learned various alternative phrases for ‘knowledge mobilization awards’ such as ‘impact award,’ ‘community engagement award,’ and ‘knowledge translation.’ This taught me to seek out literature and ask future managers about terms and jargon I might want to look into or look out for prior to beginning a project.
We also reflected on what would have made a similar future project more manageable and both agreed that having the project manager provide an example entry would be valuable, as it would help the co-op student have a better understanding of what the project manager was expecting from the project and give them something to work off of from the onset of the project.
Fig. 2 A sample of the entries on my spreadsheet [slightly blurred for privacy]