Knowledge Brokering: the art of intermediation
Résumé
Knowledge brokers move and translate knowledge and create connections between researchers and their various audiences. There is nowadays an increasing number of people and institutions devoted to knowledge brokering: science shops, technology transfer offices, science journalists, and people working in health institutions.
Two arguments will be made in this talk. First, brokering knowledge means far more than simply moving knowledge, it also means transforming knowledge. The result of brokering is the production of a new kind of knowledge—what we could call brokered knowledge. Brokered knowledge is knowledge made more usable, knowledge that “serves locally” at a given time, knowledge that has been de- and reassembled.
Second, I will argue that knowledge brokering should be understood both as a place and a process (in a sense, as a taxi and as the art of driving a taxi). Knowledge brokering can serve as a conduit between two existing worlds but it can also lead to a new world. In other words, it can be seen as an “intermediary” and it can be seen as the practice of “mediation” which leads to change. I will thus use the term “intermediation” to try to capture what knowledge brokering is.