What skills do knowledge brokers need?
Here at Insights North East, we are knowledge brokers: we help university researchers, policymakers and other local organisations to share knowledge, evidence and expertise between each other.
But we don’t just practise knowledge brokerage — we also carry out research into how best to do it. This supports our own professional development, as well as helping colleagues to improve their own skills and capabilities.
Engagement with UPEN: ‘Voice your Vision’
To this end, we engage strongly with the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN). UPEN is a national network that brings together knowledge brokers and policy engagement professionals as part of a broad and supportive community. Working with UPEN helps Insights North East both to learn from others active in our field, and to share our findings with colleagues in return.
In summer 2024, I hosted the online Voice your Vision workshop as part of UPEN’s ongoing series of professional development events. The event attracted some 40 attendees and generated a lively discussion on the key skills for knowledge brokers.
During their brainstorm, participants suggested a range of skills that knowledge brokers draw upon in their everyday practice. These ranged from technical skills—such as the use of social media or data analysis—to knowledge and its implementation, such as the importance of understanding institutional processes and the wider research funding landscape.
‘Soft’ skills and boundary-spanning
Whether it’s framed as ‘convening’, ‘capacity and capability development’, or ‘providing headspace’, knowledge brokers all work to give researchers and policymakers the time, space and permission to consider the wicked problems which we would all like to see solved.
Participants in the workshop highlighted transferrable or ‘soft’ skills as being particularly key to their roles. Colleagues mentioned the need to develop expertise in areas such as negotiation, adaptability, problem-solving, professional curiosity and relationship-building, to name but a few.
Key knowledge broker skills
The group went on to identify three particularly valuable skills for knowledge brokers:
These skills reflect the boundary-spanning nature of the sector. Knowledge brokers are constantly working to draw together people working at different career levels, in different institutional units, and from different organisations and professional fields.
We also become experts in navigating complex policy dynamics, as well as balancing differing stakeholder demands across the research-policy ecosystem.
This type of boundary-spanning activity often involves stepping into others’ shoes. Knowledge brokers need to consider people’s feelings about a problem’s causes and potential solutions, as well as their motivations, beliefs and attitudes towards the use of evidence.
A plurality of experience
At the same time, while we need a broad range of skills and expertise to be able to perform our jobs, there is no clear path towards becoming a knowledge broker.
The field of knowledge mobilisation encompasses a diverse set of professionals with a huge range of backgrounds, experiences and career trajectories. We often also have multiple identities as producers, sharers and users of evidence.
By building on this existing expertise, we can further develop our professional skills. This involves both on-the-job learning and peer-to-peer collaboration.
How does INE support capability development?
Insights North East is working to expand both capacity and capabilities across the research-policy ecosystem in north-east England. To find out more about what we’re doing, see our current policy challenges and reports and resources pages.
An earlier version of this blog post appeared on the UPEN website.