Jordan Hill
OECD
Everybody Cares About Using Education Research Sometimes
Perspectives of Knowledge Intermediaries
Abstract
Analysing the results of the 2023 OECD Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation in Education, this chapter looks at which organisations fund research and knowledge mobilisation and how they do so. This chapter also presents the sources of funding for intermediary organisations and explores the different ways in which they resource their knowledge mobilisation efforts. It offers reflections on strengths and weaknesses of research projects, knowledge mobilisation teams/departments and larger knowledge mobilisation programmes. It also draws lessons for education from wider science, technology and innovation policy, where there is unexplored potential for cross-sectoral learning. Finally, the chapter offers two case studies, one focused on a programme for funding policy research in Latvia and another analysing the funding of a well-known knowledge intermediary in Chile.
There is already a solid foundation of resources directed towards mobilising knowledge in education, but improving how this work is financed can enhance these efforts. Funding programmes must ensure a genuine rebalancing towards more complex but impactful work in education, focusing less on the number of publications and more on the quality of relationships, partnership infrastructure, and capacity for interpreting and using findings. This chapter analyses the funding landscape of knowledge mobilisation and finds that:
Research institutes are most often selected as a funding recipient and, on average, they have by far the largest share of allocated funding. The rhetoric from funders and policy makers on the importance of co-created solutions does not appear to extend to more balanced funding for a diversity of education actors.
Funders consider a variety of factors when deciding to allocate funding to research projects although, overall, the dissemination of funded research results was most commonly considered and the presence of monitoring and evaluation processes was least commonly considered.
The education sector can learn from the broader experiences of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. Two examples are wrap-around services, such as technology transfer offices, and researcher mobility schemes, such as Industrial PhDs.
Short-term research projects that disseminate research carry low risk but tend to have limited impact when used in isolation. Larger programmes provide important stability for intermediary efforts in education.
There is a correlation between the adequacy of resources for knowledge mobilisation and the satisfaction of intermediaries with both the quality of education research and how policy makers and practitioners engage with it. It is important to combine additional resources with more formal recognition of knowledge mobilisation as a professional discipline in education, as well as high-quality training on effective strategies and skills for intermediaries.
The funding landscape for knowledge mobilisation has changed significantly in the last five years, and there are more ambitious programmes emerging, many of which are education-specific (Hayter, 2024[1]). While this is a positive development, there remains a general lack of empirical research into which funding practices are more likely to successfully mobilise knowledge in education (Tseng in (Bangs et al., 2022[2])). This lack of knowledge risks wasting money and limits the ability of funders to contribute their perspectives to the overall knowledge base on how research can be produced and used well.
A stronger knowledge base can eventually help tackle big funding questions, such as the optimal funding balance between “blue-skies” research and needs-led research. It could also help to better articulate what the language of public research funding means for knowledge mobilisation in education. For instance, international science policy often makes a distinction between “basic research” (more experimental or theoretical) and “applied research” (directed primarily towards a specific, practical aim or objective) (OECD, 2015[3]). However, the distinction between these two terms often appears artificial in education, where developing solutions to problems frequently requires carrying out both theoretical and practical research in a seamless manner, combining it with professional or tacit knowledge. This tension is what led Schrader and Goeze (2011[4]) to develop the principle of “application-oriented basic research” education. This term is used in the knowledge mobilisation strategy of the German Institute for Adult Education (German Institute for Adult Education, 2024[5]), and likely other intermediaries trying to span the boundaries of research, policy and practice.
This chapter looks at some of the very basic questions that can help to inform these larger discussions in the long term. Specifically, it analyses the results of the 2023 OECD Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation in Education (henceforth, the "intermediaries’ survey”), which collected data about the knowledge mobilisation activities of 288 intermediary organisations in 34 countries to better understand how they are supporting research engagement (see Chapter 1). Analysis of this data is complemented with desk research to explore the funding landscape from the perspective of both knowledge intermediaries and the organisations that fund them. Where appropriate, the chapter also draws on the results of the 2021 OECD Strengthening the Impact of Education Research policy survey (henceforth, the "policy survey"), which collected data from 37 ministries of education in 29 countries to map the knowledge mobilisation mechanisms, actors and challenges across education systems (see (OECD, 2022[6])).
This chapter investigates the following questions:
Which organisations fund education research and/or research mobilisation and how do they do so?
What sources of funding do intermediaries have and how do they use it for knowledge mobilisation?
What is the relationship between resources and intermediaries’ satisfaction with knowledge mobilisation?
Diverse types of organisations finance education research and knowledge mobilisation. Of the 288 respondents to the intermediaries’ survey, 31 organisations (11%) listed themselves as an organisation that funds education research and/or research mobilisation activities. The source of the funding for these 31 organisations was almost always listed as public funding from regional, national and international sources; or private funding, in the case of independent foundations. There was very little mixture of public and private sources of funding for funding organisations. The respondent funding organisations can be grouped into roughly five categories:
independent foundations and NGOs (n = 8);
ministries of education (MoE) and arm’s-length public bodies (n = 8); for example, National Centres for Teaching Excellence, education agencies;
formal intermediaries (n = 6); for example, those hosting evidence portals;
public research agencies (n = 6); for example, those whose mission is to fund basic or applied research;
academic associations and initiatives (n = 3); for example, academies of science or university-school partnerships.
Funding recipients
The intermediaries’ survey included a question asking funding organisations which kinds of organisations they were funding and the percentage of their portfolio allocated to each organisational type.
Research institutes are most often selected as a funding recipient and, on average, they have the largest share of allocated funding by far
Of the funding organisations who responded to this question, 42% reported allocating all their funding to just one type of recipient. In 70% of cases, the one type of recipient was research organisations, and in 20% of cases it was formal intermediaries. The remaining funding organisations (Figure 5.1) split at least some of their allocations across different recipient types. It is important to bear in mind that these funding organisations did not explicitly state whether they are funding education research, knowledge mobilisation or both. It is therefore not possible to estimate the ratio of knowledge mobilisation funding compared to research funding in the sample.
Notes: Data shows the responses of those 14 respondents that selected more than one funding recipient type with respect to the percentage of funding they allocate to different types of organisations (out of a total number of 24 respondents to this particular question). Responses have been anonymised by type of funding organisation. Data is arranged alphabetically by type of funding organisation. The “Other” category predominantly refers to the private sector (including educational technology companies providing administrative services to funders) as well as non-governmental organisations and community groups. None of the respondents reported to allocate funding to school inspectorates and teacher unions.
Source: OECD Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation in Education data, 2023.
Low levels of funding for schools may jeopardise genuine research-practice partnerships
Although research institutes were reported to be the primary beneficiaries of funding, the “other” category, which most often included private companies, civil society and NGOs, also received a notable proportion of funding. By contrast, only five funding organisations allocated funding to schools, and the average allocation percentage was much lower compared to research institutes. This allocation landscape is not surprising, researchers are often the principal investigators on research projects and funding tends to support the researchers and research organisations (Tseng in (Bangs et al., 2022[2])). At the same time, funders consistently (and increasingly) emphasise the importance of collaboration between research producers and users to promote research uptake. The funding split reported in the intermediaries’ survey favours research institutes so heavily that it raises questions with regards to the nature and extent of support for collaborative knowledge production and/or mobilisation.
Research on partnership work in education consistently finds that strategies to shift power relations in research endeavours have more chance of success if funding mechanisms take into account the need to create trust, foster high-quality relationships between partners and implement an iterative process in collaborative research (Schlicht-Schmälzle et al., 2024[7]). If collaborative initiatives between research institutes and schools do not receive financial support in a way that is proportional to the real involvement of each party, there is a risk of deepening existing power imbalances between research producers and users. This, in turn, can jeopardise the impact of knowledge mobilisation.
Beyond research funding, authentic collaborations mean schools need support to cover the time, effort, staffing and expertise that they invest. This is an important point that doesn't seem to be properly considered in the public funding schemes that I am aware of.
– Lou Aisenberg, Senior Policy Manager for the Innovation, Data and Experiments in Education (IDEE) programme at J-PAL Europe.
Of course, an alternative interpretation of the data could simply be that funders aim not to burden schools with the administrative work required to receive funds, and prefer research institutes to do this work, since they have more capacity to deal with large, complicated grant administration. In this case, funders may wish to reconsider which expenses are allowed, encouraged, or even required in grant budgets to cover tasks, such as applying findings to practice and supporting communities to mobilise research to advocate for change (Tseng in (Bangs et al., 2022[2])). This could make receiving funds more attractive, transparent and intuitive for schools. Although the current data do not allow for an estimation of the amount of funding being allocated by funders, it seems unlikely that the funding allocated by the five organisations reporting to fund schools would tip the balance towards a more equitable distribution across diverse education actors.
Funding criteria
When it comes to how funders evaluate the merits of the proposals they receive for research, different types of funders place emphasis on different knowledge mobilisation factors when considering research proposals (Figure 5.2).
Funding organisations consider different knowledge mobilisation factors in a roughly balanced way when deciding to allocate funding to research projects
At the aggregate level, dissemination of funded research results was the most commonly reported factor for funding consideration, and presence of monitoring and evaluation processes was least commonly reported. Despite a significant percentage of shared gaps and overlaps, it is possible to discern slight preferences for certain factors among different types of funding organisations. For instance, only two out of seven independent foundations reported that they consider building the capacity of practitioners or policy makers to use the funded research in their funding decisions. By contrast, all seven of the arm’s-length public bodies and ministries reported that they consider this as a factor.
Note: N = 29. Two funding organisations did not respond to this question. Data are arranged in descending order from highest average percentage across all factors.
Source: OECD Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation in Education data, 2023.
While the data do not allow for an estimation of the amount of funding being allocated by these funder types, data on these activities in other chapters of this publication (e.g. Chapters 3 and 6) suggest that the focus of funding is leaning towards more traditional dissemination, while not enough may be allocated to monitoring and evaluation. An additional unanswered question is the extent to which different funders proactively co-ordinate in terms of their needs, goals and funding programmes to strengthen their impact. There are positive examples of funding co-ordination mechanisms outside of education that aim to make more efficient use of limited resources, from which the education sector can learn (Box 5.1).
In 2012, the Swedish Innovation Agency, the Swedish Energy Agency and the Swedish Research Council jointly implemented the Strategic Innovation Area (Borowiecki and Paunov, 2018[8]). This was expanded in 2013 to become Swedish Strategic Innovation Programmes, with total resources of SEK 16 billion going to research and innovation initiatives scheduled to last 12 years.
Around half of the funding comes from national government and half from companies, public authorities and research institutes. The initiative is evaluated every three years and a meta-evaluation reported long-term collaborations, new projects (both publicly funded and self-funded) and use of project results to improve products, services or processes as key programme impacts (Åström and Arnold, 2023[9]).
Lessons from science, technology and innovation policy
When it comes to public research funding in education, as in most sectors, it remains focused on producing academic papers in peer-reviewed journals. However, research funding in diverse sectors increasingly includes an innovation component that is seen not just as a tool to promote economic growth, but as a way of addressing societal challenges (Schwaag Serger et al., 2023[10]). Education can – and should – benefit from long‑standing and evaluated innovation management and knowledge management approaches adopted as part of broader science, technology and innovation (STI) policy (Halász, 2022[11]). This section looks at two such approaches – wrap-around innovation services and researcher mobility schemes – to understand how they may support knowledge mobilisation in education.
Wrap-around innovation services ensure resources for a range of knowledge mobilisation activities
Many, if not most, regions in OECD countries have permanent knowledge mobilisation structures, such as technology transfer offices, designed to facilitate innovation. These “wrap-around” services combine financial support with localised, targeted training, networking and innovation expertise, offering specific lines of capacity building for entrepreneurial researchers at different stages. The growing recognition of the role of innovation in addressing societal challenges means these knowledge mobilisation structures are expanding their scope and mission beyond economic growth and taking into account societal needs (Borrás, Gerli and Cenzato, 2024[12]).
Wrap-around services often employ a systematic “quadruple helix” approach, bringing together academia, public and private sectors and civil society as part of local STI policy (OECD, 2020[13]). In the case of Canada, 67 Technology Access Centres provide locally-focused advice, funding, intellectual property development and networking events. Since 2010, these centres are funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Tech-Access Canada, n.d.[14]). Specific to social sciences, the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funds 32 Impact Acceleration Accounts housed in research institutions. Each grant is worth GBP 1.25 million over a five-year period and is used for institutions to support social sciences researchers with projects and training to work with partners from across other sectors to mobilise knowledge (ESRC, n.d.[15]).
Such tailored, localised innovation support initiatives were not commonly reported in the open-ended responses to the intermediaries’ survey, suggesting that they may be less widespread in education, or not thought of as particularly promising practices. One privately-funded example that was reported was the Education Fund of the Good Deed Foundation, whose model (Box 5.2) more closely resembles that of a wrap-around innovation service, rather than an education research funding scheme. Another education-specific example is the network of nine transfer agencies (Transferagenturen) in Germany offering evidence-based advice to local authorities (OECD, 2020[16]). Both examples are still quite small and rare compared to the amount of support provided by STI policies for knowledge mobilisation more broadly. Making such tailored, wrap-around support more systematic and/or accessible in OECD education systems would more closely align education research with recognised good practices in innovation.
The Good Deed Foundation is a 20-year-old private philanthropy foundation in Estonia. The Education Fund is a programme of the foundation with contributions from more than 60 companies and entrepreneurs and a total size of over EUR 3 million. The fund supports education initiatives (both financially and through its expertise and network), invests in education start-ups, implements its own initiatives, and commissions research. It focuses on the quality of school management, increasing the supply of teachers and the science of learning and meta-cognition.
In addition to financial support, the fund provides management advice, expert networks, communication and impact assessment, legal advice and fundraising advice. For example, the Alpha Kids initiative, which brought together teachers and researchers to co-create age-appropriate and culture-based digital learning games for children aged 3-8. The games currently have 120 000 users across 420 educational institutions in Estonia.
Source: Good Deed Foundation (n.d.[17]), Good Deed’s Funds and Incubator, https://heategu.ee/en/funds/education-fund/ (accessed on 18 July 2024).
Researcher mobility schemes and knowledge transfer fellowships are effective ways of deepening relationships between research and its users
STI funding explicitly aims to scale up the results obtained from publicly funded research. This often means the commercialisation of research for new products or the licensing of technology (Guimón, 2019[18]). Essential to this process is fostering intense science-industry relations, co-financing and co-creation of knowledge over the medium to long term through shared facilities and mixed teams (Guimón, 2019[18]). Despite recent efforts to foster the mobilisation of research through intensifying collaboration between research, policy and practice, genuine co-creation of knowledge, shared facilities and mixed teams remains outside the mainstream in the education sector in many OECD countries. Instead, the value of partnership work in education is often normatively described as “nice to have”, rather than something bringing tangible benefits (Schlicht-Schmälzle et al., 2024[7]). However, work on knowledge mobilisation conducted in the last 20 years gives a strong indication that the relationships built during genuine collaborations can raise the relevance, accessibility and use of research in education.
Researcher mobility schemes are a core tool used to deepen relations between science, policy and industry. A classic example in STI funding is Industrial PhD schemes, which first appeared in Denmark in 1970 and are now widespread in Europe and North America (Compagnucci and Spigarelli, 2024[19]). Industrial PhD graduates experience working in the dual cultural context of academia and industry, developing the capacity of adaptation, flexibility, and an applied-driven approach to addressing challenges and needs (Compagnucci and Spigarelli, 2024[19]). There is a promising trend of applying the Industrial PhD model to the policy making context, such as the Norwegian Public Sector PhD programme (OFFPHD). OFFPHD was established in 2014 at the Ministry of Education and Research, and is explicitly modelled on Norway’s industrial PhD scheme, enabling a PhD to be undertaken in a university by a candidate working in a public sector body (OECD, 2023[20]). In 2022, France also launched a public sector PhD scheme (Government of France, 2023[21]). Indeed, the number of such policy fellowship opportunities is increasing in OECD education systems (for an example in Wales, see (OECD, 2023[20])). However, these initiatives are much rarer when it comes to education practice.
Industrial PhD schemes are not the only kind of researcher mobility that STI policy uses to foster knowledge mobilisation between actors. Others include knowledge mobilisation partnerships/fellowships (Box 5.3), which are attracting positive attention in diverse sectors (e.g. health (PenARC, 2024[22])). When learning from STI funding, there is an obvious question of generalisability. Education is different from STI in the sense that it is not industry- or market-driven to the same extent. This is another reason why more empirical research on funding mechanisms in education is required, to allow an informed assessment of the transferability of schemes from other sectors.
When it comes to STI funding, the United Kingdom’s Knowledge Transfer Partnerships programme is one of the most widely recognised internationally, in part because of its 45+ year history and published independent impact evaluations (Guimón, 2019[18]; UKRI/ SQW, 2023[23]).
Each Knowledge Transfer Partnerships involves a firm, a university and a suitably qualified graduate (75% have a master’s or PhD degree) who will undertake an innovation project within the firm for a period of one to three years, under the joint supervision of the university and the firm.
The university employs the graduate, but the firm co-finances the salary alongside a public grant (GBP 80 000 to 100 000). Besides contributing to science-industry knowledge transfer, the programme is a useful tool to enhance the propensity of early-career researchers to engage with industry.
Funding sources
In the intermediaries’ survey, each respondent was asked to provide a breakdown of their overall funding sources (Figure 5.3).
Public funding dominates sources for knowledge mobilisation
By far the largest volume of funding for respondent intermediaries comes from the public sector. This is not surprising, since so many of the intermediaries in the sample are universities or public research institutes. In terms of the diversity of funding, non-profit and private sources were reported by just under half of respondents, and international organisations were sources of funding for around one-quarter of respondents. However, the average amount of funding received from these sources is very small.
While some consider high levels of public funding as a positive sign (see quote below), the dominance of public funding across much of the sample does mean that many intermediaries need to make extra effort to maintain an image of independence, while also emphasising their alignment with the funding priorities of policy makers in order to benefit from future public grants (MacKillop and Downe, 2023[24]).
The level of public funding could suggest that policy makers see knowledge mobilisation as a real priority and the task is not just being left to a small group of organisations who are fortunate enough to have income from their wider commercial investments that they can either distribute to others or use directly for their own work.
– Jonathan Kay, Head of Evidence Synthesis, Education Endowment Foundation
Notes: The “other sources” category triggered a qualitative question and responses included fees for education associations and unions, interest on endowments and selling products or services.
Source: OECD Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation in Education data, 2023.
These aggregated data hide variation at the country level. Looking only at countries with the most respondents (≥ 10 organisations), the average percentage of funding from public sources ranges from 94% in the Netherlands, to just 28% in Australia. Australian respondents reported that the greatest share of their funding came from the “other” category, where several education associations reported that they rely mostly or entirely on membership fees. The United States had the highest average funding (24%) from non-profits (associations, think tanks, foundations) and from the private sector (22%). This may be partly explained by the higher prevalence of philanthropic organisations – which are mostly focused on the education sector – in the United States compared to other OECD countries. Of the philanthropic assets identified in one major international comparison study, 60% were held by US foundations while the combined assets of foundations in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Türkiye and Ireland equated to 37% (Johnson, 2018[25]).
Other sources include commercial activities, endowment and tuition fees
In the qualitative responses to the intermediaries’ survey, several organisations gave examples of commercial activities that provided them with funding. For example, subscription fees, income from endowments, tuition fees and student accommodation, as well as sales of products and services. In some cases, the funding sources for commercial activities may still be public (e.g. where publicly funded schools are paying for professional development services, or public universities pay a membership fee to an umbrella organisation). Nonetheless, the range of commercial activities that contribute to making the work of knowledge intermediaries possible, points to an often-unrecognised entrepreneurial landscape across intermediaries in education, with potential for peer exchange that could unlock additional resources for organisations. For instance, intermediaries could share information about how they blend funding to overcome potential interruptions or variability in finances, as outlined in the Chile case study later on in this chapter.
Activities funded
The qualitative responses collected in the intermediaries’ survey were supplemented with desk research of respondent organisations to reveal a diverse array of income streams and structures for different intermediary organisations. Despite this variety, it is possible to reflect on three broad ways knowledge mobilisation is resourced by intermediaries: research projects; teams and departments; and larger programmes. These three formats are not mutually exclusive, are often combined and have their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Funding that focuses on disseminating research from projects does not recognise the costs involved in impactful knowledge mobilisation
Project funding is generally linked to tangible and time-bound deliverables or outputs that cannot easily be adjusted and have a fixed (usually short) timeframe. For example, intermediaries indicated the use of European Union (EU) Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, Erasmus + and Cohesion Funds for project-based work. But EU funds are by no means the only source of financing for the project work undertaken by the organisations in the intermediaries’ survey sample. Research organisations, such as universities and public research institutes, were the largest single group of intermediaries’ survey respondents. OECD data show that project funding and core operations (block) funding from national actors are the primary public financing mechanisms for universities/public research institutes (Borowiecki and Paunov, 2018[8]). For instance, in the United Kingdom, seven research councils fund project-based research in the higher education sector, while Research England provides block funding to English universities.
Traditional research projects (i.e. with a single funder, broad research topic and single recipient) are important for developing new knowledge and often include vital linear mobilisation activities (e.g. dissemination of outputs) (Oliver, 2023[26]). However, it has been recognised for many years that research projects are poorly suited to maintaining the relationships, infrastructure and processes needed for the systematic mobilisation of knowledge, since they do not recognise the costs involved before and after funded projects take place (Jackson-Bowers, Kalucy and McIntyre, 2006[27]). Currently, researchers find that the time, energy and money required to mobilise knowledge remains largely unacknowledged in research funding (Karcher et al., 2022[28]). This is important because quality use of research requires organisational structures – including funding mechanisms – that allocate time, space, facilities and budget to networking, learning and deliberation opportunities (Rickinson et al., 2022[29]). At the moment, traditional research projects are often constrained by short timelines, with little money allocated to relationship building or responding to windows of opportunity with additional activities once a project has begun (Taddese, 2021[30]). This makes it harder for policy makers and practitioners to become – and remain – engaged with the knowledge that is being generated.
Projects that explicitly allocate funding to relationship and capacity building may be seen as riskier by funding organisations, but are more likely to result in research impact
In an effort to move away from the limitations of funding traditional research projects, some OECD systems have now begun funding longer-term applied research projects in education, which generally aim to produce more usable outputs and build capacity within the system to use research (Box 5.4). Other OECD systems have incorporated collective approaches to designing funding schemes to ensure higher engagement from beneficiaries (e.g. research institutes) with policy or practice needs (see Case Study 1 later on in this chapter). The ESRC Education Research Programme is another example of a research initiative where regular interactions between the project managers and the funder throughout the project’s implementation provide an avenue for feedback regarding the time and resources required for impact generation (see the England case study in Chapter 3).
In Germany, the Federal Education Ministry (BMBF) has been implementing the Empirical Educational Research programme since 2007. When it was launched, it represented an unprecedented intervention in German research on education in financial, structural and substantive terms (Zapp and Powell, 2017[31]). It funds applied research projects to complement the funding mechanisms of the German Research Foundation, which funds basic research projects (BMBF, 2018[32]).
The current framework has been running since 2017 and a total of 260 projects have been funded with EUR 210 million (as of March 2024). The primary recipients are research institutes, and projects are usually implemented through a consortium and tend to last 2-6 years, depending on the scope. The objectives of the programme are to deepen knowledge and gain insights in new fields; strengthen the knowledge base for education practice and policy; promote co-operation between research, practice, policy and civil society to identify relevant problems; promote innovations to improve education in the long term; and expand excellent educational research (BMBF, 2018[32]).
The programme has four themes: digitalisation, equity, diversity and quality. Involving stakeholders is an explicit objective of the programme, and research institutes that focus on the mobilisation of knowledge in education practice are given greater consideration. Special emphasis is also given to collaborative research methods, regular monitoring and systematic reviews (BMBF, 2018[32]). The Federal Ministry commissioned an evaluation of the programme in 2021, however, the results are not publicly available (Prognos, 2021[33]).
Part of the challenge with moving away from funding focused on delivering traditional education research projects is to do with public funders’ low tolerance for initiatives that are deemed risky, as they may create reputational or political damage (Vincent-Lancrin, 2023[34]). If a public funder awards a grant to a research institute for a traditional education research project, they can be quite confident that the project will deliver the lengthy written outputs (e.g. journal articles) or dissemination events (e.g. conferences) that were promised in the proposal. Research institutes in OECD countries have been performing these tasks for decades. By contrast, if a public funding organisation funds larger and more ambitious projects, such as long-term research-practice partnerships, it may take much longer to demonstrate outcomes and they may not be as tangible. In the worst case, the partnership may fail or run into organisational problems, and produce very little. For example, research-practice partnerships that do not manage to establish the necessary levels of trust or support from their senior leadership may struggle to produce and/or use research (Schlicht-Schmälzle et al., 2024[7]). But the reality is that practitioners and policy makers rarely consult journals and reports when they need help to solve their problems; more often, they consult trusted colleagues (Tseng in (Bangs et al., 2022[2])). Published written outputs remain important for recording and communicating research findings, but they are not the mechanism through which research achieves impact. Funding programmes must ensure a genuine rebalancing towards more complex but impactful work in education that focuses less on the number of publications and more on the quality of relationships, partnership infrastructure, and capacity support for interpreting and using findings. This requires devoting a larger share of funds to higher-risk but higher-reward project formats (like partnership work). This would also offer greater opportunity for research institutes and other education actors to gain valuable experience working in more diverse teams, which over time reduces the chance of failure for such projects.
Funding organisations may want to reconsider how they conceptualise “risk” when it comes to successfully funding research. Even if the funded work has a high chance of being completed and producing the agreed-upon outputs, if the research does not have an impact and is not used, that is a rather low return on investment.
– Tracey Burns, Chief Research Officer, National Center on Education and the Economy (United States)
There is already a dense infrastructure of teams and departments mobilising knowledge
Most organisations that responded to the intermediaries’ survey pointed to established teams or departments within the organisation that had a responsibility to mobilise knowledge (see two examples in Box 5.5). Funding for such teams or departments tends to have only general provisions as to how it is spent (e.g. implementing a mission statement) and covers organisational overheads (e.g. rent, management/administrative salaries, utilities). Intermediaries reported that they receive a diverse range of organisations’ funding from membership fees, event fees, donations from private individuals and companies, local and national government grants, interest and returns on financial endowments, tuition fees, student accommodation fees, and income from educational technology products.
Further Education and Skills Service (SOLAS), Ireland
SOLAS (An tSeirbhís Oideachais Leanúnaigh agus Scileanna) was established in 2013 as the state agency that oversees the Further Education and Training sector in Ireland. In 2022, it had an annual budget of EUR 1,087.2 million (88% of which was direct grants to education and training providers). Activities are either fully funded by the Irish Government or co-funded with the European Union. SOLAS has over 200 employees and three knowledge mobilisation units:
Skills & Labour Market Research Unit, which publishes research and reports on the further and higher education sector as well as other related sectors;
Data Analytics Unit, which supports evidence-based decisions through, for instance, annual statistical reports;
Strategy & Evaluation Unit, which co-ordinates the implementation of the Further Education and Training Strategy 2020-2024, conducts the programme of research and manages an EU-wide network.
National Institute of Youth and Popular Education (INJEP), France
INJEP (Institut national de la jeunesse et l'education populaire) is a nation-wide service of the Ministry of National Education and Youth. It was created in 2015 and had an annual budget of EUR 2.3 million in 2023 and a team of around 50 people. The organisation:
positions itself as a broker, situated at the crossroads of research, policy and practice;
acts as both an observatory, producing knowledge directly, and a centre of expertise on youth issues, state education, community life and sport;
aims to contribute to improving knowledge in these areas through the production of statistics and analyses, observation, experimentation and evaluation.
Source: SOLAS (2022[35]), Annual Report and Accounts, The Further Education and Training Authority, Dublin, https://www.solas.ie/f/70398/x/0ba8eca526/solas_annual_report.pdf (accessed on 17 July 2024); INJEP (2023[36]), Annual Report, Ministry of Education and Youth, Paris, https://injep.fr/linstitut/rapports-dactivite/ (accessed on 17 July 2024).
The reporting of more general funding sources, as opposed to concrete programmes or project grants, could simply be a limitation of the dataset. However, it could also indicate that, in addition to bigger knowledge mobilisation funding initiatives (see Hayter (2024[1])), there is a significant amount of funding (and hence activity) to support evidence use in education that is being allocated as part of core operational tasks and activities. For policy makers this is both encouraging, as it expands the overall funding directed towards mobilising knowledge, and challenging, as decisions on how to co-ordinate resources to optimise knowledge mobilisation (even in public institutions) mainly falls outside the direct influence of ministries.
Larger programmes can provide important stability for intermediary efforts
In contrast to project funding, which tends to be shorter-term with very fixed goals and outputs, programme funding often covers higher costs incurred directly from the pursuit of medium- to long-term thematic objectives. These objectives may also be adjusted depending on emerging needs and system requirements.
Perhaps because of their scale and objectives, publicly funded knowledge mobilisation programmes (see Box 5.6 and the US case study of the Regional Education Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers in Chapter 4) tended to be reported more often in the intermediaries’ survey compared to private initiatives. Examples of such programmes often used various approaches, including impact evaluation and co-production, to generate and mobilise knowledge.
J-PAL Europe leads the Innovation, Data and Experiments in Education (IDEE) programme in France as part of a consortium of six other research institutions.
The programme has been funded for a period of eight years by (2021-2029) by the government via the French National Research agency (l'Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)) as part of the 2010 “Investments of the Future” (Investissements d'avenir ) programme.
It seeks to develop experimental research in education and support the use of evidence by supporting numerous projects. For example, “Bien joué !” (well-played) is a mathematics game programme launched by the French Ministry of Education, which was evaluated with IDEE’s support via a randomised controlled trial to analyse its impact on student performance.
Source: J-PAL Europe (n.d.[37]), Bien joué !, https://www.idee-education.fr/projetssoutenus/bien-jou%C3%A9-! (accessed on 17 July 2024).
Programmes are often implemented through a group of smaller projects or discrete tasks. For instance, Latvia uses European Structural Funds (ESF) for a co-financing programme to support participation in international large-scale assessments, such as the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)'s Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). As part of this co-financing programme, the Ministry of Education and Science allocates funding to smaller projects to perform secondary analysis and mobilisation of results to educational policy makers and practitioners in schools. Other examples of the source of programme funding given in the intermediaries’ survey included campaign donations from private individuals and companies, as well as local and national government grants for specific initiatives.
For knowledge mobilisation to be impactful, it needs to have appropriate levels of financial and human resources, allow sufficient time for engaging with research and have enough soft infrastructure (access to journals, databases, networks, etc.) to ensure access to high-quality knowledge. The intermediaries’ survey explored respondents’ perceptions of the adequacy of these four types of resources for knowledge mobilisation in policy and practice.
Adequacy of resources and satisfaction with available education research
The intermediaries’ survey also asked intermediaries how satisfied they are with the accessibility, relevance and quality of education research, as well as how satisfied they are with the extent to which policy makers and practitioners use research and the ways in which they use it. This section discusses the statistical correlations between the adequacy of resources perceived by intermediaries and their levels of satisfaction.
The more adequate knowledge mobilisation resources are, the more satisfied intermediaries are with the characteristics of education research and with research use
The more adequate resources are perceived to be (on average) to develop and support effective knowledge mobilisation in policy and practice, the more satisfied intermediaries are with education research in terms of its quality, accessibility and relevance. Similarly, there is a moderate positive relationship between the perceived adequacy of resources for knowledge mobilisation and intermediaries’ satisfaction with the use of research (including the extent of research use and the ways in which it is used). This is true for both policy and practice.
This suggests that the adequacy of resources for knowledge mobilisation is a factor for the quality, accessibility and relevance of education research itself, as well as its use, although there are likely many other factors that also influence these relationships, and causality cannot be established. Importantly, these correlations do not mean that more resources will automatically solve all of the challenges related to knowledge mobilisation in education.
Satisfaction with the characteristics of education research is positively related to satisfaction with its use in policy and practice
The more positive intermediaries’ perception of the quality, accessibility and relevance of education research is, the more satisfied they are with the use of research both in policy and in practice. Accessibility and relevance are two aspects of education research that are necessary conditions for knowledge mobilisation and thus, just like for resources, this relationship is not surprising.
Despite strong evidence that quality, accessible and relevant education research – and adequate resources for its mobilisation – are basic conditions for its use, these conditions are far from being met in most education systems. This is, of course, partly related to different perceptions of adequacy. As outlined in Chapter 4, the ministries of education that responded to the policy survey generally reported more resource challenges compared to the organisations responding to the intermediaries’ survey. However, there are two exceptions to this – more intermediaries than ministries reported: a lack of time for policy makers to access and engage with research, and a lack of financial resources for mobilising research in policy.
To close this perception gap and ensure that intermediary actors feel they have sufficient resources to support knowledge mobilisation, funders could involve different actors already in the design of funding schemes, as showcased in the Latvia case study below. Intermediary actors can also work on ensuring diversified funding sources for their efforts, to generate a revenue stream with fewer administrative requirements for implementation compared to competitive public funds. As demonstrated in the Chile case study, this revenue stream is more easily reinvested in other areas of the organisation, such as staff training or public advocacy activities.
There is a need for more policy-relevant research in many OECD countries (OECD, 2022[6]; OECD, 2023[20]). The Latvian Ministry of Education launched the State Research Programme in Education in 2023 to strengthen evidence-based decision making and to create new knowledge and practical solutions in education institutions, municipalities and at the national level. This funding programme, planned to run until 2026, aims to generate policy-relevant research.
Research project funding in Latvia consists of a bottom-up and a top-down funding mechanism (Figure 5.4). The former is a more traditional call for fundamental and applied research projects, and is based on scientific interest. The latter, the State Research Programme, is a funding scheme for policy-relevant research, in which the research themes are defined by the sectoral ministry in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science and relevant experts. State Research Programmes aim to support the Latvian government with research evidence on the most important issues for sustainability and development of the country.
Source: PowerPoint presentation by Latvian Ministry of Education during the qualitative interview of the OECD Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation in Education; see also Latvian Council of Science (2024[38]).
Collective programme design to build engagement and shared understanding
The framework for the programme was co-developed by several ministries, with the Ministry of Education playing a key role, alongside field experts (e.g. researchers, technology experts). They used insights from international research, including OECD data and analyses, and had a series of dialogues about topical issues. This resulted in six themes for the programme: linguistically-diverse learning environments; building capacity of education actors to manage change and innovations; providing effective professional development for adults (including teachers); supporting the transition towards a new framework for academic careers in universities; civic participation of young people; and AI and technology-based teaching and learning.
The programme preparation involved ministry employees and researchers participating in the European Commission’s Learning Lab training on policy impact evaluation. The dialogues and peer learning therein helped strengthen the relationship between the ministry and the research community.
Following the identification of relevant themes, the Council of Science published the calls for research proposals. The criteria for funding include: policy relevance, specification of the ways in which the research organisation will be collaborating with target groups (e.g. ministry, municipalities, schools) and a plan for piloting or testing the research results.
Evaluation of proposals and monitoring and appraisal of research
To ensure independent evaluation in a relatively small country with a small community of researchers and experts, the proposals are evaluated by international experts from the European Commission’s database. Evaluation criteria include the relevance of proposals, research design and the research capacity of the team and the institution. The Ministry has set up a Monitoring Commission to review all research reports, involving both ministry employees and external experts specifically selected based on the research topic (typically the same who evaluated the proposal).
The mid-term (18 months) appraisal considers the procedural, administrative progress of the work, such as spending of funds, and the scientific quality of the research and its impact, including publications (both scientific and popular science publications) and public engagement events. Particular attention is given to policy relevance, the engagement of target groups and the applicability of findings in policy. Adjustments are proposed if necessary. Testing or piloting the results is also encouraged before reaching final conclusions. Importantly, this appraisal process is an occasion to discuss the findings with the target group (e.g. ministry employees) and serves to better integrate research results in the policy decisions.
Challenges and limitations
The planned three-year duration of the programme may be too short for collaborative research to bear fruit. Building trust among researchers and target users (e.g. policy makers in ministries, municipalities) and developing a shared understanding of the research and its goals takes time. This is necessary for the research to be truly collaborative and impactful (Schlicht-Schmälzle et al., 2024[7]).
While there have been examples of such programmes becoming long-term, stable mechanisms in Latvia, sustainability of funding for the State Research Programme beyond the three-year period has not yet been granted. Building long-term knowledge for policy and ensuring a permanent circulation of knowledge between researchers, policy makers and practitioners requires sustained funding.
Expanding the approach: Lessons for others
Despite the challenges, the funding schemes of Latvia have promising features for more effective knowledge mobilisation. The Ministry itself sees the following main benefits of the State Research Programme:
The Ministry of Education receives policy recommendations on issues of their interest and policy priorities.
Education co-designs programmes with other ministries and through this creates stronger linkages with economic and societal priorities. In addition, the Ministry of Education attracts funding for research from other ministries.
Ministries become more aware of state-of-the-art scientific literature and build scientific literacy.
The programme fosters larger interdisciplinary research projects.
In addition, the complementary bottom-up and top-down funding mechanisms ensure that policy-relevant research is generated, but at the same time, ensure that research does not become entirely policy-driven and there is still funding available for foundational research and science-driven investigations.
Some other countries have similar policy-driven research funding schemes, such as the Areas of Research Interest in both England and Ireland. Countries with similar schemes could learn from each other about how they strengthened policy-research partnerships through such schemes and how they overcome challenges. Countries that do not yet have such mechanisms can draw on these examples to create their own context-specific versions.
Fundación Educación 2020 (E2020) is a Chilean non-governmental organisation dedicated to improving education quality, equity and inclusiveness for children and young people in Chile. With a team of 27 employees, E2020 focuses on influencing public policies through data analysis and field projects while advocating for educational innovation. Central to its mission is knowledge mobilisation, with E2020 implementing research-based interventions in schools and collaborating with universities to support implementation and conduct evaluations.
The organisation's emphasis on monitoring ongoing public policies, and on systematising project experience and outcomes measurement through public data – in addition to its dedication to evidence-based interventions – makes it a key player in Chile’s educational reform landscape. However, like many organisations engaging in knowledge mobilisation activities, E2020 faces significant challenges in securing funding, particularly for the evaluation of its work.
The TEP and TEPA projects: Leading programmes in the region
In recent years, a branch of E2020's national and international work has been centred on the peer-tutoring model. This involves a structured learning interaction between a tutor and a learner, fostering horizontal dialogue, respecting the learner's pace, and encouraging autonomy, expression/recognition of emotions and meta‑cognition. Based on a 1990s Mexican policy model, the TEP (Tutoría Entre Pares in Spanish) project was piloted in Chile between 2016 and 2023, aiming to improve learning outcomes and reduce educational exclusion through peer tutoring. The project trained teachers and school leaders to change school culture by implementing peer-tutoring strategies, resulting in increased student attendance, decreased mistreatment, and improvements in student performance, especially among lower-performing students (Educación 2020, upcoming[39]; Educación 2020, 2022[40]).
Inspired by the success of TEP in Chile, and a similar experience in Colombia, E2020 launched the TEPA project (Tutoría Entre Pares en América in Spanish), which, to date, has focused on rural schools in Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru. TEPA integrates inclusive and intercultural approaches while promoting teacher professional development and increased student self-efficacy. While the TEP project had its focus in Chile, TEPA expanded this model regionally, proving its adaptability and scalability in diverse educational systems (Álvarez and Araneda, forthcoming[41]; Educación 2020, 2023[42]; Educación 2020, 2023[43]).
A unique funding model
According to the intermediaries’ survey, E2020’s funding landscape stands out as strikingly different from the average Chilean survey respondent (see Figure 5.5). While most organisations in Chile report receiving the majority of their funding from the public sector, E2020 relies heavily on the private and non-profit sectors. Despite the considerable challenges in securing adequate funding (see the Challenges and limitations subsection), this funding model offers several unique advantages.
Notes: The survey asked respondents to indicate the percentage of their funding coming from the different sources. The “Other” category triggered a qualitative question and responses included fees for education associations and unions, interest on endowments and selling products or services.
Source: OECD Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation in Education data, 2023.
A funding model that includes significant funding from private sources comes with both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, the variability of funds can undermine the organisation’s financial sustainability, as its operational model depends on income generated through the provision of services – a revenue stream that may not always be predictable or financially feasible. On the other hand, while variable funds have notable drawbacks in terms of providing a reliable and consistent flow of income, when combined with multiple funding sources, they may also offer a flexibility to organisations that can help them to adapt to the changing needs of education actors.
Commercial activities, such as providing services to schools, school communities, and school administrators, can generate a revenue stream with fewer administrative requirements for implementation compared to competitive public funds. These resources can originate from public or private sources and often require applying through a public bidding process. However, once awarded, they can be used without seeking funders' permission to cover short-term funding gaps, which helps reduce dependence on public grant cycles. Additionally, any profits generated from commercial activities can be reinvested in other areas of the organisation, such as staff training or public advocacy activities.
Challenges and limitations
These external funds tend to operate on shorter-term financial cycles (e.g. yearly grants) and often show high variability (e.g. school communities purchasing the organisation’s services). The reliance on short-term funding cycles often leads to short-term projects, leaving E2020 with insufficient resources to evaluate long-term impact, which is essential for scaling up and improving the reach of its projects. The lack of appropriate funding for evaluating impact is a challenge noted by other intermediaries and researchers reliant on public funds as well. It appears the issue may lie more in the structure of the funding mechanisms, rather than in their source.
Typically, funding is allocated for either implementation or evaluation – rarely for both, and predominantly for the former. Impact evaluations, such as randomised controlled trials (RCTs), require large sample sizes and significant financial support, both of which are challenging to secure. Short-term funding cycles often force E2020 and similar organisations to rely on qualitative data, even though quantitative evidence is critical for demonstrating project efficacy and securing further support.
Expanding the approach: Lessons for others
E2020's story is not just one of innovation and impact but also of financial challenge and adaptation. Its experiences demonstrate the importance of sustainable and multi-source funding and the critical need for evaluation in education projects, offering valuable insights for organisations operating in similar contexts.
The diversification of funding sources has allowed E2020 to sustain its operations and projects – and even expand them to other contexts – but it also underscores the challenges of relying on short-term and variable funds in a system where public sector funding remains limited for certain actors. Other organisations may look to E2020's model of combining private, non-profit and international funding sources to ensure long-term viability.
E2020’s difficulties in securing adequate funding for both implementation and evaluation highlight the importance of designing more flexible and holistic funding mechanisms. Governments and international and private donors alike could play a more active role in providing longer-term funding that covers the full project cycle, ensuring that both implementation and rigorous evaluations are adequately resourced.
E2020’s success with its Peer Tutoring model suggests that international collaboration, tailored to local contexts, can lead to scalable solutions. Countries seeking to improve education quality through evidence-based interventions could consider adapting this model while ensuring that adequate funding is in place to evaluate and refine these initiatives.
This chapter explored the nature of funding and other resources for knowledge mobilisation. Although simply adding short-term dissemination tasks to the workload of staff with other long-term responsibilities may be more attractive financially, quality knowledge mobilisation costs money. Funding intended to produce relevant and accessible research is important but not sufficient by itself.
The intermediaries’ survey analysis showed that most funding is currently allocated to research institutes. Despite much rhetoric from policy makers, funders and researchers on collaborative and needs-led approaches to evidence use in education, the data indicate that this does not yet equate to money for other education actors (such as schools) to generate and use research. When it comes to funding organisations, an important question is how public and private funders might co-ordinate more proactively in terms of their needs, goals and funding programmes to try and maximise the impact of their funding.
There also needs to be serious consideration of funding more systematic innovation support services for researchers, schools and policy makers. There are evidence-based and long-standing examples for ambitious innovation schemes in STI policy that have lessons for the education sector. Some of the independent foundations that responded to the intermediaries’ survey fund knowledge mobilisation across a diverse array of actors, providing wrap-around support alongside funding and implementing a wide range of education projects. More extensive schemes, including mobility schemes, are needed. These would combine financial support incentives for more diverse teams, as well as localised, targeted training, networking and innovation expertise, using local networks and offering specific lines of support to those trying to mobilise research at different stages. Reflecting on this also means thinking about how these programmes might need to be adapted for an education context.
Having dedicated departments and teams within research organisations, public bodies and education practice, who are trained and confident in building capacity and maintaining connections between actors, is also crucial. Encouragingly, respondents to the intermediaries’ survey reported a dense infrastructure of teams, departments and programmes that aim to build capacity, relationships and improve evidence use. This is a solid foundation on which to build. When it comes to strengthening the impact of resources, involving various actors, including intermediaries, in the design of funding and incentive schemes would increase both their awareness of existing resources and the alignment of these to actual needs This might further increase the satisfaction of intermediaries with both the quality of education research and how policy makers and practitioners engage with it. A significant proportion of funding for knowledge mobilisation is likely directed through operational costs and human resources into teams and departments who may not even consider themselves as intermediaries. It is important to combine any additional resources with formal recognition of knowledge mobilisation as an integral part of educational improvement for all education organisations.
Identify the main funding sources (governmental, philanthropic, private or international) that support knowledge mobilisation in education within your system. Examine the key resourcing components – financial resources, human resources and soft infrastructure – that characterise these sources. Create a funding flowchart that maps out how resources move from funders to various organisations or initiatives, identifying key recipients and the types of knowledge mobilisation activities in which they engage.
Consider the following factors:
the level of financial investment and the conditions tied to funding (e.g. flexibility, time constraints);
the human resources available: their expertise, capacity for knowledge sharing, leadership roles, and development opportunities;
how financial and human resources help or hinder the use of soft infrastructure;
the alignment between funder priorities and recipient needs in terms of resources provided (e.g. financial, staff, infrastructure);
mechanisms for ensuring the effective use of resources, including accountability structures and feedback loops between funders and recipients.
Discuss strengths and weaknesses in the map you drew up. What works well? What could be improved and how?
Improving the funding of knowledge mobilisation in education
Where are there imbalances in resource distribution (e.g. underfunding in certain areas or over-reliance on certain types of funding for knowledge mobilisation)?
How can funders and recipients work together to align financial, human and infrastructure resources more effectively?
What long-term strategies could be put in place to ensure sustainable resourcing for knowledge mobilisation?
Are there opportunities for funders to invest not only in projects but also in partnerships and building capacity (human and infrastructural) across recipient organisations?
How can partnerships between funders and recipients be strengthened to enhance the collective impact of knowledge mobilisation activities?
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The numbers in the table below indicate the Spearman correlation coefficient for a given variable
Note: All correlations are significant with a p value less than 0.001.
Adequacy of resources for knowledge mobilisation in policy: Average of four 5-point Likert scale variables that measure the extent to which respondents agreed with the statements: There are adequate 1. human resources; 2. financial resources; 3. time; 4. soft infrastructure to develop and support effective knowledge mobilisation activities in policy.
Adequacy of resources for knowledge mobilisation in practice: Average of four 5-point Likert scale variables that measure the extent to which respondents agreed with the statements: There are adequate 1. human resources; 2. financial resources; 3. time; 4. soft infrastructure to develop and support effective knowledge mobilisation activities in practice.
Satisfaction with research use in policy: Average of two 5-point Likert scale variables that measure the extent to which respondents are satisfied with 1. the extent to which policy makers use research in their work (how much); 2. the ways in which policy makers use research (how well).
Satisfaction with research use in practice: Average of two 5-point Likert scale variables that measure the extent to which respondents are satisfied with 1. the extent to which practitioners use research in their work (how much); 2. the ways in which practitioners use research (how well).
Satisfaction with research: Average of three 5-point Likert scale variables that measure the extent to which respondents are satisfied with the following characteristics of education research in their system overall: 1. the quality of education research (in terms of rigour, validity and reliability of the methods, data and findings); 2. the accessibility of education research (in terms of language, format and price) for practitioners, policy makers and other actors; 3. the relevance of education research for policy and practice (in terms of significance and practical value of research findings in addressing policy/practice questions).