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| Building a Knowledge
Partnership |
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The AGS simulation "Building
a Knowledge Partnership" was designed by MIT Professor Lawrence
Susskind and colleagues at the Consensus Building Institute to introduce
strategies for building effective knowledge partnerships such as
those needed between university-based scholars, industry sponsors
and public advocacy groups. Its particular focus is on the ways in
which applied research can help advance the goal of global
sustainability. The simulation also introduces participants to
specific techniques for turning conflicts into opportunities for
consensus building. The key goal of the simulation is to increase
the likelihood that research on sustainability is relevant to, and
is taken into account by, decision-makers and
stakeholders.
At the end of the simulation, participants
ought to:
- Have a greater awareness of the role of knowledge partnerships
in implementing the results of university-based research; and
- Be cognizant of the important dynamics of partnership design
in organizing their own research activities.
Participants
are called upon to develop strategies for dealing with conflicting
values and interests that typically create barriers between
knowledge producers and knowledge consumers.
Four key
difficulties in building research partnerships tend to include:
- Insufficient transparency
- Lack of engagement of actual knowledge users in research
design
- Incompatible timeframes
- Inaccessible format of research outputs
Key
strategies for dealing with such barriers are:
- Early face-to-face meetings to discuss research design
- Incorporating policy-relevant considerations in research
design
- Being sensitive to different time frame constraints
- Producing results in multiple formats
The prime
audience for this simulation is meant to include, but is not limited
to, university researchers, their industry partners, and funding
organizations.
The General
Instructions (pdf) are available on this page. Instructors and
agency personnel interested in using the game to teach should
contact Karen Gibson at the MIT
Laboratory for Energy and the Environment to request the
confidential instructions and teaching notes. These documents will
be sent electronically. |
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