Newcastle 2019 – the location for this year’s UK Knowledge Mobilisation Forum. Walking along Newcastle’s waterfront to the Forum venue, enjoying the city’s fine array of bridges in the springtime sunshine, I’m struck by what a great example of urban regeneration Newcastle’s quayside is. In particular, the mix of cultural and urban regeneration is striking, with the acclaimed Millennium Bridge, and nearby Baltic Art Centre and Sage music venue dotted along the city’s quayside.
Such innovation, a city emerging from the stagnation and industrial decline of the previous century, in a sense underlines one of the key messages of this year’s Forum – the importance of bringing a fresh perspective to our research, of using creativity to look at new ways to bridge the research to practice gap, acknowledging how creative approaches can bring a lifeline to the often-difficult task of knowledge mobilisation. It also highlights the importance of stories – like every city, Newcastle has its own unique story – once a prosperous centre of shipbuilding, coal mining and heavy industry, descending into decline with the waning of its shipbuilding and coal industries, then re-emerging phoenix-like through a series of regeneration initiatives, which have given the city a more modern flavour while still preserving its historic fabric.
Stories matter, as we learn from the Forum’s first keynote speaker, Ishbel Smith of Heart in Mouth. Even the stories we have grown up with can serve as powerful accounts, as Ishbel illustrates, cleverly weaving examples of familiar nursery stories into her presentation to outline her key points.
The richness of stories and creativity is further reinforced by the setting for this year’s Forum – Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, whose winding staircase and fairy-light ceilinged conference room add a touch of magic as well as a dash of humour to this year’s event. But it also serves as an important reminder – not to lose touch with the child-like imagination that is so often lost to us through the seriousness of adult life or the important business of research, statistics, measurement, objectivity. Research need not be a dry, detached business sitting in its ivory tower of academic practice and peer-reviewed journals. In fact, to truly bridge that research to practice gap, we need to take it down from the top shelf of countless reports and subscription-only journals by injecting some child-like imagination into the ways in which we communicate our results or tell the ‘story’ of our research.
Attending this year’s UK KMb has been a genuinely engaging and enjoyable experience. As someone who is relatively new to the knowledge mobilisation field, but well used to the challenges of implementation and getting research into practice, it has proved a fitting and exciting introduction to the world of knowledge mobilisation in terms of the learning gained as well as the people encountered. I look forward to continuing to follow the work of this important Forum and to hopefully attending more of its annual events in the years to come. Thanks to all for making it a great first UK KMb experience!