Please join us in welcoming Karol Olejniczak, visiting evaluator from Poland, for Knowledge Brokering: Effectively Transferring Research Results into Policy Practice.  

This professional development seminar will be held on Wednesday, June 22 from 6:00pm to 7:00pm at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (Room A-9). Following the event, those interested are invited for dinner and drinks downtown. 

Knowledge Brokering: Effectively Transferring Research Results into Policy Practice

Abstract

There is a clear gap between producing scientific evidence, including evaluations, and using it in decision-making to improve the effectiveness of public policy. Recent studies and practice show that bringing credible evidence to decision makers is not sufficient; the evidence needs to be ‘brokered’. That is, because decision makers and researchers are driven by different imperatives and time frames, using different language.

In the presentation, Karol will cover two issues. First, he will share results on his recently published study of "knowledge brokering" practices that are promising for the effective transfer of research results into policy practice. Second, he presents an innovative training method - a specially designed board game that has been used to provide effective training on knowledge brokering to public professionals.

Karol concludes that skills of knowledge brokering are indispensable for practicing evaluators while 'The Knowledge Broker Game' can be a useful method for learning these skills in a safe environment.

Presenter

Karol Olejniczak is a professor at the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (EUROREG) – University of Warsaw (Poland) and co-founder of the Polish evaluation company, EGO. He was a visiting scholar at Prof. Elinor Ostrom’s workshop on Policy Analysis (2006) and the Kosciuszko Foundation Fellow at The George Washington University (2011-2012).

In his research, he focuses on evaluation of public interventions, knowledge management, and behavioral public policies. He is an author of publications on regional policy, methodology of evaluation, and organizational learning. Apart from academic research, he also conducts a number of evaluations and policy analyses in Poland and UK. For his extensive applied research, he received the title of 'Evaluator of the Year' from the Polish government.

Please RSVP so we know how many attendees to expect.