Philosopher-craftsmen: interesting times for research communications professionals

Plato, the Greek philosopher

By Emilie Wilson, Communications, Institute of Development Studies

Two exciting new publications have landed on my desk today :
(1)  Knowledge, policy and power in international development: a practical guide and the latest edition of the IDS Bulletin,
(2)  Action research for development and social change.

Knowledge, policy and power in international development: a practical guide, not a definitive model

The first, a book by researchers at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), aims to be a "practical guide to understanding how knowledge, policy and power interact to promote or prevent change". However, the authors are quick to put in a disclaimer:

"...we acknowledge that, although some models provide useful analyses of some aspects of the interface between knowledge and policy, it is impossible to construct a single one size-fits-all template for understanding such a complex set of relationships".

That is not to say the authors aren’t aiming high: "this book seeks to provide: 

• a state-of-the-art overview of current thinking about knowledge, policy and power in international development 
• present empirical case studies that provide concrete examples of how these issues play out in reality 
• offer practical guidance on the implications of this knowledge base” 

I’m looking forward to getting stuck in, and am particularly intrigued by their “Questions this section will help you to answer” approach to structuring some of the content. I’m also looking out for references to work by IDS Knowledge Services around knowledge intermediation (well, of course I am!).

Action research for development and social change

The second, edited by Danny Burns, who heads up the Participation, Power and Social Change team at IDS, is the latest edition of the IDS Bulletin.

IDS Bulletins come in a variety of shapes and sizes – some very theoretical, others with more practical examples. This one appears to provide a nice balance of both, and has a stellar cast of leading lights at IDS on action research and participatory approaches.

Again, there is a disclaimer "we have not sought to draw firm conclusions or a single 'theory of practice'" but then a helpful identification of recurrent themes around which to hang your reflections as you read along: power and complex power relations, learning, and action.

Both these works, I think demonstrate what an exciting time it is to be working in the realm of research uptake, weaving analysis into practice, and giving us communications professionals space to reflect on the impact of our work.

I’m not a development practitioner, I’m a communications professional...

In my early days at IDS, when I had more enthusiasm than experience, I remember a conversation with a colleague in which I referred to us as “development practitioners” and she responded “I am not a development practitioner, I am a librarian”. She’s quite right, in many ways – a librarian with a whole heap of experience in international development.

I guess that description could apply to me too: a communications professional experienced in international development. Just as others are engineers, agronomists, doctors, project managers...experienced in international development.

That is, we should not forget, while we muse on power, complexity and social change, that we are also master craftsmen. Our understanding of communication, our craft, is based on an understanding of human behaviour. While it needs to be nuanced by peoples culture, worldview, literacy, all manner of contextual factors - we remain craftsmen who understand what to look for and how to build it in different contexts. It provides us with a lens through which to see the world.

Hopefully, with my bedside reading all set up now for the next month, the theory (and practical guidance) will percolate into my communications practice and I can aspire (grossly paraphrasing Plato) to being a ‘philosopher-communicator’...(albeit with less beard!)

Reflections on the K* summit: beyond K-Star-wars?

By Catherine Fisher

It was only a matter of time before someone made the KStarWars joke at the K* Conference that took place at the end of April in Canada. I’m only sorry it wasn’t me!

However, the K* Conference was notable not for its battles, but for the sense of commonality that emerged among the participants and for the momentum for future action it generated. 


The K* summit aimed to connect practitioners working across the knowledge-policy-practice interfaces to advance K* theory and practice. Its aim was to span the different sectors and contexts and different terms under which this kind of work is undertaken, for example Knowledge Mobilisation (KMb), Knowledge Sharing (KS), Knowledge Transfer and Translation (KTT).  Hence K*:  an umbrella term that attempts to bypass terminology discussions. 

This blog post provides links to some of the great reporting from the event, acknowledges some of the critiques that the event raised and points to the next steps for K*.    

• K* about process not outcome (blog link)

The opening presentation highlighted how K* is about supporting processes of exchange and engagement between knowledge-policy-practice interfaces not the achievement of particular outcomes. It was great to hear this point made by John Lavis, who has something of a guru status in K* in health. Other important points were about learning about context and what that means, not just saying its important!

• K* about shining a light on multiple sources of knowledge (video link)

Another great metaphor courtesy of Charles Dhewa. The importance of multiple knowledges, knowledge hierarchies and the role of K* actors in helping to facilitate interactions between those knowledges was a recurring theme. E.g. see video by Laurens Klerxx talking about multiple knowledges and innovation brokers. 

• Transnational comparison of K* practices (video link) 

As David Phipps explains in this video, participants from Canada, Ghana and Argentina were able to find considerable commonalities in their work with communities. This transnational comparison may be familiar to those of us who work in international development but it was a first for many of the Canadian participants who are doing really interesting work, for example, in government ministries or communities. I think this points to a strength of the K* movement in connecting people that might not otherwise talk.

• Exploring the range of K* work and how the different pieces of K* work fit together (video link)

The conference illustrated the range and scope of K* work. For example, Jacquie Brown, National Implementation Research Network who works helping communities to implement science, has learnt how this piece fits within the broader scope of K*.  For me, this seeing how different kinds of K* roles are played and how they intersect is important.  

In this video, I share some of my reflections at the time: brokering in the Canadian context including an  examples of brokering at the point of research commissioning:  power dynamics in brokering; and the way that informing role of knowledge brokering is getting a “bum rap” compared to more relational knowledge brokering work. I also get distracted by bangs, crashes and the emergence of breakfast!  

Critiques and the importance of engaging with them

The conference has generated some robust critiques. For example, Enrique Mendizabal sparked a discussion on his blog, On Think Tanks with a range of critiques including whether knowledge brokers are required, how knowledge is shared, and a critique of elitist professionalisation of this field. Scroll to the bottom of his blog post to read the responses, including mine. Meanwhile, Jap Pels argued that the nature of the debate at K* was pretty basic knowledge-sharing stuff.

I think both of these critiques raise interesting points but I think they constitute arguments For K*, not against it. K* recognises that the knowledge work is changing and proliferating, that there is considerable experience and understanding that is not shared across the different spaces in which the role is played. It aims to bring together bodies of expertise (for example that which Jaap Pels points to) to raise the game of all practitioners. It will hopefully provide spaces for debates and engagement with the kinds of critiques that Enrique raises.   

So what next for K*?

The conference generated a range of areas for further collaborative action, and plans for taking the K* initiative goes from here. 

Areas for further collaborative action included:

• Understanding impact: a group agreed to share the tools data collection tools they are already using, I’ll be participating in this group, building on work of Knowledge Brokers Forum
  
• K* in developing countries: a predominantly African group explored the particular dimensions of K* work in their contexts generating a number of action points

A group of participants gathered on Saturday to work out what next for K* as a whole. Consolidation of the K* Green Paper is considered an important next step – co-organiser  Louise Shaxson will be leading this work. There are ideas of developing a more formalised network, which will be led by UNU-INWEH in the first instance.   

UNU, who have led this process so far, remain committed and aim to get the support of the UNU governance. The World Bank has already provided financial support. Support from such international bodies is important as it will embed the international nature of this initiative, it is not without its risks!    


So to borrow again from StarWars, the force is, for now, with K*.  The scale and ambition of the initiative together with some indications of funding and high profile support suggest it has a future. However it faces both practical and fundamental challenges.

Practical challenges include maintaining ownership and momentum on behalf of the largely volunteer force taking it forward for now, identifying its niche and building connections around such a fragmented field of practice.

More fundamental challenges lie in ensuring that it really can generate value that will improve knowledge-policy-practice interfaces, rather than providing a talking shop for elitist actors.   




Catherine Fisher is a member of the K* Conference International Advisory Committee.

More on Change: systems, principles, and learning

By Elise Wach, Consultant Evaluation and Learning Advisor

I am back to talk about change following on from my previous postings (Change is hard and Change is hard but not impossible) on how you change a sector, Here are some reflections from the latest IRC Triple-S learning retreat.

IRC is attempting to change the way water is provided in rural communities by:

1. changing the way things work at the level of rural communities so that water is available to everyone indefinitely, and
2. changing the water sector to enable this to happen. 

I think it is easy to get lost in the frameworks and theories that attempt to explain how to achieve these changes. For example, there are a number of different frameworks proposed for influencing policy and measuring that influence (for example Crewe and Young 2002, Court and Young 2003, Steven 2007, Gladwell 2000, etc.). These provide useful insights as to what might make a difference, but at the end of the day we need to remember that these are complex and unique systems that we are trying to change: so there is no ‘best practice’! 

Danny Burns’ seminar at IDS yesterday on "How Change Happens" helped remind me that while it is not necessarily labelled as such, Triple-S is essentially using a Systemic Action Research (PDF) approach: their larger (systems) view of the water sector and iterative learning processes enable them to recognise and respond to opportunities for change.

Image from: http://www.rallytorestoresanity.com 

In attempting to influence policy, for example, Triple-S is not just looking at written policy documents (although this is one piece of Triple-S work).  But they recognise that policy change results from and is indicated by changes in discourse, perceptions, agendas, networks, political contexts, and institutions.  And that a multitude of stakeholders are involved in those changes, including journalists, NGO workers, researchers, finance ministers, and even people who post on Twitter. They recognise that certain events (such as a change in government) can greatly accelerate or completely block policy changes. 

And that the right evidence and information at the right time delivered to the right people could make a difference.  So the Triple-S approach is built on the assumption that changing policy doesn’t entail following a formula but instead recognising and responding to opportunities and trigger points.

At the rural community level, Triple-S is trying to ensure that the rural water sector takes into account a variety of factors in order to ensure that water services are provided to everyone indefinitely.  So this means looking at life-cycle costs, mechanisms for transparency and accountability, possible alternative service providers, accounting for the multiple uses of water, etc. etc.  

But does viewing these issues with a systemic lens mean that we become paralysed by the complexity?  Danny Burns pointed out yesterday that the key is to focus on action rather than on consensus.  To focus on the actions that different actors can take that can change the system.  Or as Bob Williams explains in his the Ottawa Charter approach (doc), it will be a ‘strategically selected jigsaw of people and organisations doing what they are most effective at’ that will create lasting change, rather than Triple-S trying to change the sector on its own.

Triple-S isn’t trying to get consensus around a specific approach to achieving sustainable rural water supply, but is instead trying to get everyone on board with basic set of principles for sustainable services and providing a range of resources and tools and building capacities (look out for new trainings in the near future) to put those principles in action. They are leveraging existing institutions and structures, and working closely with individuals and organisations to facilitate ownership.

But getting people to wrap their heads around the concept of changing their principles is a big obstacle.  People want tools and approaches that they can go put into action, and while Triple-S is providing a range of these, success starts with viewing rural water supply completely differently: it isn’t ‘the Service Delivery Approach’ but ‘a Service Delivery Approach’. 

Another obstacle Triple-S is facing relates to the way in which evidence is perceived.  So there are people who say, ‘this is all fine and good in theory, but is it really possible? Can we really achieve both sustainability and scale? Where is the evidence?’  Evidence is a strong word.  Today, it usually refers to a call for a ‘rigorous’ approach like a randomised control trial.  But if you want to find out if services are provided forever, then how long do you have to wait for the RCT results?  And here is where I cannot resist but refer to the brilliant example of the limitations of RCTs – would you doubt that a parachute would make jumping out of a plane safer just because an RCT has not proven it?  I think this highlights the need for the development community to reflect on what we consider to be evidence.     

But I don’t think that these obstacles are insurmountable, especially given that Triple-S’ approach enables it to recognise and respond to opportunities and challenges while remaining focused.  One of the Triple-S pillars is for the rest of the rural water sector to have ‘a strong learning and adaptive capacity’.  I see this as pre-requisite for success in the other two pillars, and in the rural water sector in general.  But achieving this is....well, complex.

Policy influence or evidence-informed policy: what is the difference?

By Catherine Fisher

“We all want a culture of evidence informed policy making, don’t we?” asked Dr Ruth Nyokabi Musila from African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) at the opening of her presentation at the International Conference on Evidence Informed Policy.

It was a commitment to this ideal that had united over 50 researchers from 4 continents, brought togther in Ile Ife, Nigeria, earlier this year. I was attending under the auspices of the IDS Mobilising Knowledge for Development Programme (MK4D) and had been invited to present and chair a session.

Policy influence is not the same as evidence informed policy
 

Throughout the conference I was struck by a blurring between the (admittedly closely related) concepts of research having policy influence and evidence informed policy. The difference seems pretty obvious to me but I sometimes struggle to explain it.  

Let me try this…  

• Effective research communication (which aims to influence policy) is indicated by change in policy/process/discourse based on the research findings you are communicating.
  
  
• Effective evidence informed policy is demonstrated by a culture (systems, processes, attitudes and behaviours) that mean that people in decision making processes regularly engage with research from a wide range of sources when formulating, implementing, reviewing policy.

And to illustrate this difference, here are two examples from the conference:

Image: http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/

Firstly, Kakaire Ayub Kirunda, shares his learning on how to influence policy. He observed that  “while members of parliament might be an ultimate target, they hardly have time and it is their clerks and assistants who do the lion's share of their research..."

He adds that, in a conversation with Ugandan MP, Honurable Obua Denis Hamson, who also chairs the Science and Technology Committee of Parliament, about how he would want researchers to approach him with evidence, the MP suggests “Probably the easiest way is to first give me a brief summary of your research findings. We can start from there.”


Ah yes, the ubiquitous policy brief. IDS' Impact and Learning Team recently conducted some research around the effectiveness of these as a communication tool, but that is for another blog.

By contrast, an example of supporting evidence informed policy was brilliantly illustrated by Jorge Barreto. He described the creation of an “Evidence Centre” in PiriPiri, a town in a poor region of Brazil. The Centre promoted the use of health evidence locally to improve municipal decision-making process.

Over a beer the night before, Jorge had told me that infant mortality rates in Piripiri were far lower than in other similar towns, his colleague added “20 babies survive a year because of these local policies”.  

Jorge’s presentation concluded that “current efforts to improve local government’s capacity to use research evidence to define problems, find tested interventions, assessing the quality of global and local evidence and translating evidence to key stakeholders are worth continuing. This is our little contribution towards addressing the knowledge to action gap.” Not so little for those children who survive and their families.


I feel it is worth maintaining the distinction between policy influence and evidence informed policy as the activities you undertake to influence policy with research will be different to those you might undertake if you wish to bring about a culture of evidence informed policy.

Such as...Research communication versus knowledge brokering


Two areas of activity which seek to either influence policy and/or support evidence informed policy are research communication (sometimes referred to as research uptake) and knowledge brokering (sometimes referred to as knowledge mobilisation). These distinct activities also often get confused (see my earlier post Buzzing about brokers).

Working closely with IDS Knowledge Services, engaged in knowledge brokering activities, and the IDS Communications Team, focused on supporting IDS research, this is something we decided to explore in more depth at an Impact and Learning team ‘learning lab’, a reflective practice tool we’ve been using to create a space for shared learning.

Here are some notes from the lab, which focused on "desired outcomes": 

"Research Communication and Knowledge Brokering get confused because while they start from different places (one piece of evidence versus many pieces of evidence) they use similar methods and communication tools (e.g. policy briefs). However, they can be untangled again when you look at the outcomes they are trying to achieve:

• Desired outcomes of ‘Research Communicators’ relate to a change in a specific/thematic policy or practice i.e. you know RC activities have succeeded if a specific policy decision is made
• Desired outcome of ‘Knowledge Brokers’ relate to a change in the information-seeking and decision making behaviour of policy/practice actors i.e. you know KB activities have succeeded if decision makers consider a diverse range of evidence to inform their decisions

Importantly, power matters: in Research Communication, the relationship between the researcher (or research institution) and decision maker makes a difference to whether the decision maker gets to hear about a specific piece of evidence (e.g. informal encounters, ‘Beer Buddies’) whereas knowledge brokers, such as the IDS Knowledge Services, can work to equalise that power imbalance for less powerful researchers (or research institutions). For example, the British Library of Development Studies' work around improving access to research published in the global South”

I will explore how ‘politics’ comes to play on these two strands of research uptake activity in my next blog. Meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter @CatherineF_IDS; I'm currently at the K* Conference in Hamilton, Canada.

Digital information on the move: the rise of the Tablet

By Simon Batchelor

Here in the UK the ‘new’ devices of smartphones, tablet pcs and ipads are very evident. Just take a train, and you will see at least half the people on it are staring at a screen.  While we may think they are working on their emails, some of them are just playing games or watching films – nevertheless digital information on the move is becoming even easier.

So is this change in device use becoming common in the countries where we work?


Our recent study (yet to be officially launched and published), suggests that for the policy environment these devices are changing access to information.  When asking 368 policy actors in six countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal) what devices they have access to we get the responses as shown in the figure below.

Emerging findings from Impact and Learning Team (IDS) research, full report will be available on www.ids.ac.uk

The figure illustrates that 90% of respondents have a computer desktop either at home or the office, 88% have a laptop for use in either the office or home.  However what becomes interesting is their growing use of Tablet computers.  Tablet use among policy makers in the South is at 12%. 

So how does this compare with the UK scene?  While we don’t have the UK figures (and if anyone has please add as a comment), the Pew internet survey for the USA (June 2011) suggests that use of Tablets across the USA has risen to 8% over the last 12 months.  This means average use among policy actors in the South is slightly higher at 12%.  Perhaps interestingly but unsurprisingly, desktop and laptop use among policy actors is considerably higher than the USA general public average which stands at 58% and 52% respectively.  

Indeed in September 2011, India's Economic Times carried a story announcing that the computer allowance for MPs had been raised from Rs 150,000 to Rs 200,000.  The extra Rs50,000 was specifically to obtain a tablet device such as an ipad or Samsung Galaxy powered by Android. “Owning a tablet is mandatory for all MPs, officials said.”  The article states that “over 125 members from the total 245 have already bought the tablets”.

And how about Smartphones?  The graph shows that 40% of respondents had smartphones. Of these 8% had iphones, 12% Blackberries and 31% were ‘other’ smartphones – where smartphone meant they got their email over the phone and could surf the internet.

What does this increased use of mobile technology mean for Knowledge Intermediaries?  

The information ecosystem is changing.  Policy actors do indeed have access to the latest technology, and the proportion of early adopters among the policy actor subset is approximately the same as the averages of the general public in the USA.  While much intermediary work is digital, the debate continues as to whether it is the best pathway for getting research in front of the key people.

Our forthcoming report explores the behaviour of policy actors, but in terms of potential digital access, the data confirms that, increasingly, policy actors have access to this medium, and we should not miss the opportunity to develop "apps" which engages with these early adopters. A real-time example of the potential in this is the IDS Knowledge Services Open API. It allows developers to create apps for Android-driven Tablets and smartphones which could tap into the BRIDGE and Eldis research databases containing over 32, 000 summaries and documents.

What should the post-2015 MDG (on water and sanitation) look like, and how would we measure it?

By Elise Wach, Evaluation and Learning Consultant, Impact and Learning Team, Institute of Development Studies

IDS Bulletin 43.2

On World Water Day, I had the opportunity to attend the IDS STEPS Centre launch of the IDS Bulletin on Politics and Pathways in Water and Sanitation. The discussion focused strongly around the MDGs: it was recently announced that the target for water had already been met, but there are a lot of questions about what that really means and how it was determined that we have ‘halved the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water’.

The panellists all lambasted the fact that the goal says nothing about equity.  And while the word ‘sustainability’ is included the target, there are serious doubts about how that is actually measured.  Katharina Welle’s research, for example, revealed that neither the neither the method used by the Ministry of Water and Energy (based on infrastructure completed) nor the method used by the JMP (based on household use of water) accurately captures the access issues that people in rural areas are grappling with.

This resonates quite strongly with the work I’m doing with the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) to synthesize the learning streams for the Triple-S Initiative, which is attempting to completely transform the rural water sector.  And I have been asking myself, if we wanted another round of MDGs, and if we kept the same sector-based approach (both are big ‘if’s’ and there are more), what would we want the water sector goal to look like, and how would we measure progress towards it?

I essentially worked backwards through a simplified theory of change, starting with the end goal. Based on the principles of Triple-S, I went ahead and defined the end goal to be:

Everyone has sustainable access to safe, adequate, and reliable water.

Essentially, there are five core components here (the five words in bold).  While they are all intrinsically linked to one another, let’s attempt to look at just one aspect of this: sustainability.

How do you measure sustainability?  You could go back and see if water services are still there in ten years’ time.  That’s useful, and I think it should be done (and so does Water for People) but how do we know now if water services will continue sustainably in ten years time?   

Perhaps we’d want to think about what is needed to ensure sustainability, and try to measure that. According to Triple-S, one prerequisite for ensuring that water services last is to ensure that there is the capacity, financing, and planning for major replacements in the future (i.e. not just maintenance). And there are a variety of other direct and indirect requirements for sustainability: ownership, inclusion, accountability, transparency, government capacity, and coordination to name a few.

So a big challenge would be to agree on the requirements for sustainability.  Assuming we can overcome this (daunting) hurdle, we’d then need to assess whether these are in place.  But measuring these won’t be as straightforward as measuring the number of people who live within a certain radius of a borehole.  And there are other issues as well, such as the issue of Multiple-Use Systems, as Stef Smits discusses.

It will be, in a word, complex.   

But if the issues we’re trying to address are complex (and they are - read more about "complexity" in this ODI working paper (PDF)), then it isn’t surprising that measuring progress and achievements is complex as well. 

While the simplicity of the MDGs may have helped mobilise support for development, that simplicity comes at a cost.  As Lindsey Nelson discussed in her STEPS presentation on multi-modal discourse last week, there are consequences to basing your strategy on a bumper sticker slogan.  Something to think about as we discuss the post-2015 development agenda.

(Still) Seeking a cure for Portal Proliferation Syndrome

By Susie Page

As co-editor to a forthcoming issue of the IDS Bulletin (autumn 2012) which will be focusing on ‘research communications’ (all facets of it!), I am currently reading about some very exciting work around this.

During our Call for Submissions, Geoff Barnard, former Head of the Information Department here at IDS, and now Head of Knowledge Management at the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) sent me a link his blog on Seeking a Cure for Portal Proliferation Syndrome.

Geoff aptly captures the dilemma that anyone working in research communication and knowledge brokering will be familiar with – the temptation to solve some of the challenges around research communication and uptake in development policymaking and practice by gathering all the relevant research into a super, sophisticated website. The underlying assumption being – if only people could access the research (at the click of a button), then the rest will follow.

He obviously hit a nerve, as there was a stream of responses to his blog, including one from Catherine Fisher who also contributes to this blog, highlighting her work “Ten Portal Pitfalls” – I would urge you to read Geoff's blog and contribute to the debate. 

Can we 'scientifically' test for what works when it comes to research uptake?

Image from: http://72.167.62.13/

Coming from a medical background, the words “cure” and “syndrome” had immediate resonance for me: in the medical world, we are acutely aware of persistent diseases and syndromes with millions of pounds spent on testing for cures (although take it from me the health sector struggles equally with the business of research uptake! See Lomas on this, for example).

But does similar testing occur in this sector – the one that wants to get good research results out of the lab and into development policy and practice? Is it even feasible to conceive of a scientific test for something as amorphous as “knowledge” and “evidence”?


Going back to 'the cure', we should perhaps be asking whether portals are a syndrome or a symptom. If they are symptom, the problem could be that we think research is not being used in policymaking and practice because people don’t have access to it. Yet, surely the very proliferation of portals in itself highlights that this isn’t the problem – after all, how will one more portal succeed where others have failed? What do we know about the success and failures of portals? What actually do we know about the relationship between portals and research uptake?

With people still wracking their brains over measuring impact of research, there is room for some robust ‘scientific’ testing what is and isn’t effective for supporting research uptake and the place (or otherwise) of portals within this. We recently teamed up with 3ie to carry out an experiment on the effectiveness of the ubiquitous ‘policy brief’ (even more ubiquitous than portals, I would argue). The results are just beginning to come through. Watch this space for more on this – we will of course be sharing our findings with you!