Grant: Knowledge Translation Supplement

Knowledge Translation (KT) is dependent on relationships which are enabled by distributed networks of researchers and decision makers. Social networking can enhance transparency and trust amongst network members thus enabling collaboration. Working from a CIHR IPM grant (2005-2009) York University has created Canada's first institutional KT unit specializing in health and society and has created a network of researchers and decision makers by brokering155 collaborations between researchers, graduate students and their non academic research partners, mainly but not exclusively, in York Region. Some of these relationships are transient but others such as a number of large-scale KT associated research projects have multiple stakeholders distributed over multiple sites collaborating over many years. Social networking tools are increasingly used to facilitate connection and collaboration within networks and communities of practice especially in the not for profit sector. This KT Supplement will build on the knowledge brokering of the first CIHR funded IPM grant through deployment of and training for social networking tools that will support on line communities of researchers and their decision maker partners, facilitate research collaboration and dissemination of KT outputs amongst researchers and decision makers and provide a unique repository of publicly accessible KT outputs that will be housed in the website of ResearchImpact, Canada's KT network. The work will be piloted on a community engaged research project "Teen Pregnancy and Teen Mothers: Meeting the Needs in York Region" and will be rolled out to other KT collaborations.