How Women RISE uses knowledge translation to drive policy and practice
Knowledge translation is a critical component of research for development as it bridges the gap between research and its practical application in real-world settings. Knowledge translation — also referred to as research uptake, research utilization, research to action, and knowledge transfer and exchange — is embedded in the design of IDRC’s programs. The aim is to ensure that research findings are shared, interpreted and implemented by relevant stakeholders to improve decision-making, policies and outcomes. At IDRC, knowledge translation is defined as “the processes of moving research-generated evidence into action with a view to having a positive impact on addressing development challenges.”
IDRC encourages a collaborative knowledge-translation model that connects global, regional and local stakeholders. The organization promotes co-creation models, where research design, implementation and uptake are jointly developed by knowledge users and researchers, ensuring that they are both practical and implementable.
Knowledge translation in action at Women RISE
The Women RISE initiative is addressing the gendered impacts of COVID-19 with support from IDRC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. One of the primary, and unique, knowledge-translation strategies employed by Women RISE is the mandatory inclusion of decision-makers as co-principal investigators on the project research teams. This strategy has proven effective. Decision-makers, who are members of critical stakeholder groups across various levels of government, give their buy-in to projects, increase accountability for project outcomes and provide invaluable insights that ensure research outcomes align with policy priorities.
Another key Women RISE knowledge-translation strategy is the engagement of an external Health Policy and Research Organization (HPRO) — an independent, non-partisan institution that facilitates knowledge mobilization, capacity strengthening and networking between research teams. The HPRO works with research teams to support key knowledge-translation efforts, such as project branding and communications, as well as convening peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing and collaboration workshops, among other activities.
At the project level, individual research projects adopt a range of knowledge-translation strategies and tactics in alignment with project objectives, operating contexts and target research groups. While some of the adopted tactics are cross cutting, others are very specific or tailored to suit the individual project objectives.
A Women RISE project called ARISE & WIN focuses on understanding the gendered impact of COVID-19 on young self-employed Nigerian women. It is co-producing solutions that foster better systems and wellbeing. The project engages with policymakers, researchers and self-employed young women who are actively involved in all project phases, including proposal development, project planning and project execution. Through a series of stakeholder engagements, including knowledge co-production workshops, the project’s knowledge-translation approach supported the improvement of its theory of change. It also helped identify two main areas for its interventions: capacity building and social protection. Some of the self-employed young women also serve as peer consultants, providing invaluable insights to the project’s intervention roadmap while also using their newly gained skills to co-deliver interventions within their communities.
The project is building the capacity of self-employed young Nigerian women in the use of digital storytelling to tell personal stories of resilience in the face of COVID-19. Self-employed young women are also receiving training in areas such as business and financial literacy, legal and human rights, digital literacy, and health and wellness. Study findings emphasize the critical need for a reengineered social-protection framework in Nigeria, with increased access to credit and financial incentives to boost savings. This will enhance the resilience of self-employed young women against future crises, ultimately contributing to a stronger and more resilient female workforce. The project’s social-protection interventions will focus on providing self-employed women with access to health insurance and savings schemes.
Another project known as RE-CARE examines the needs of women essential care workers in Malaysia to address care sector vulnerabilities and build resilience to future crises. The project partners with policymakers in the country’s Ministry of Health to co-design and implement research that addresses the needs of women in Malaysia’s care economy. While knowledge translation is incorporated across the project lifecycle, RE-CARE’s major strategies are focused on three key areas:
- media engagement to sensitize the public on concepts related to care work such that, when findings are disseminated, they can be contextualized
- stakeholder engagement to ensure sensitization toward issues related to care workers, secure buy-in and position the research as critical to fill data gaps. This includes co-production with stakeholders, including affected community members (care workers), and participation in conferences, among other efforts.
- policy outputs to share learnings and findings. Project team members routinely meet with relevant stakeholders to discuss the policy implications of research findings and produce policy briefs, and they regularly meet with a technical committee comprising government officials and care workers who provide advisory support for emerging policy issues.
A unique approach to knowledge translation adopted by the RE-CARE project is the use of external knowledge brokers across two key areas: media and policy. These knowledge brokers have subject matter expertise and networks that can connect the research learnings to their intended audience.
While Women RISE projects have tailored their knowledge-translation strategies to directly address project needs and intended outcomes, the following common threads can be extracted from the various strategies:
- Stakeholder engagement: Women RISE projects ensure that continuous collaboration between researchers and stakeholders, such as policymakers, NGOs and grassroots organizations, is maintained, guaranteeing that the research addresses policy gaps and community priorities.
- Tailored knowledge products: Women RISE projects create tailored knowledge products (e.g., policy briefs, cartoons, videos) that suit the needs of different audiences, enabling faster uptake by decision-makers and practitioners.
- Participatory co-creation process: The projects understand the importance of co-creating knowledge by including knowledge users, community leaders and government officials from the outset to ensure that the research addresses practical needs.
- Inclusion of a knowledge-translation strategy at every phase of the project: Knowledge translation forms a critical part of every stage of the project’s life cycle.
In Peru, a project known as ANITA addresses the challenges and constraints of social-protection policies for women domestic workers. It uses a participatory-action-research approach, which engages participants in all aspects of the research, from establishing the research question to designing research methods, data analysis and knowledge dissemination. This approach centres the voices and perspectives of women domestic workers, championing their inclusion in project co-creation processes and advisory processes.
The project created two participatory committees:
Co-researcher Committee: This group includes domestic workers who provide insights from their experiences and perspectives. They work with the research team to ensure that the objectives and methods are aligned with the needs and interests of domestic workers. They attend scheduled meetings to discuss and provide input on the research, including what key information will be collected, how data will be collected, and how results and reports will be shared.
Advisory Committee: This committee includes current and former domestic workers who are leaders or representatives of domestic-worker organizations. Their inclusion will help to improve understanding of the workers’ needs, increase ownership at both the individual and organizational levels, promote the feasibility of research procedures and support knowledge translation.
In addition, the project engages with policymakers and academics as part of a steering committee.
Steering Committee: This committee includes civil servants with a current or past role in key departments of public institutions responsible for ensuring formal working conditions for domestic workers. It also includes academics who have conducted research or implemented a program related to domestic workers. The committee enhances the credibility of the study, its reports and the future recommendations. They play a key role in initiating policy discussions based on research findings.
In collaboration with these committees, the ANITA project also utilizes knowledge-translation tactics such as policy briefs, dissemination events, social media campaigns and deliberative dialogues to engage stakeholders, drive advocacy for domestic workers and share research recommendations with appropriate audiences.
As the Women RISE projects forge ahead in their implementation and evaluation phase, research teams will continue to utilize program- and project-level knowledge-translation strategies to support research outcomes. Projects will also remain flexible and ensure that knowledge translation evolves and adapts in line with changing contexts, providing more avenues to influence health and gender policies and create sustainable change.
