Knowledge Transfer & Exchange at CRE-MSD
Long-term collaborative research partnerships have become standard for the way workplace research is conducted by CRE-MSD. The model has its roots in a number of disciplines including knowledge transfer (Hutchinson and Huberman, 1994), Mode 2 research (Nowotny, et al., 2003), community-based participative research (Israel, 2006; Israel, et al. 2005), participatory action-based research (Guba,1987; Lewin, 1951), and evaluation of stakeholder participation (Stufflebeam,2001).

CRE-MSD follows five best practices of knowledge transfer:

  • Know who your community is and target your message to their needs;
  • Engage your community in the research process to ensure that the research will be relevant and useful;
  • Identify who is considered a credible communicator to that community and establish them as the major link;
  • Present your message clearly to that community; and
  • Evaluate how effective you have been in engaging the users of the research

View diagram of KTE model

CRE-MSD has conducted collaborative research projects with members of seven sector-specific health and safety associations (including transportation, manufacturing, service sector and electrical utilities) as well as ergonomists, health and safety professionals from companies, and union representatives. Our workplace partners act as links to Ontario’s 500,000 workplaces.

The collaborative process has become well established. A small research team (less than eight people) is created with equal and strong representation from researchers, intermediary associations and workplaces. The team as a whole, frame the problem, make decisions on the research question, decide on the research methodology, write the proposal, and conduct the workplace interventions, data collection, analysis of the data, and write up of the research study.

The collaboration allows researchers to gain a deeper knowledge of the sector, explore the areas of greatest need for investigation and interventions, identify some of the barriers and facilitators of implementing the intervention, and get a “feel” for the uniqueness of the sector.

Another advantage is that the engagement of workplace parties as partners in the research process leads to findings that are more “generalizable to the complex realities of real-world implementation in particular settings” (Greenhalgh, Robert, Bate, et al., 2004a, p. 339), and improves uptake and utilization of research.

The KTE Research Program
The KTE Research Program at CRE-MSD takes a global view of knowledge transfer of OHS research findings to workplaces. Each stage of the process is open to research.

These distinct stages can be broken down into:

  • What research findings are going to be transferred and in what form?
  • What is the organizational context into which the knowledge is going to be transferred?
  • Who is the most effective knowledge broker of this knowledge to this audience?
  • Which KTE techniques are most effective?
  • How can we encourage the users of research to be involved in the research process?
  • How can we evaluate the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer process?


Major issues in KTE
What? (what is the body of research that is being transferred?)
How does the complexity of the message affect the ease of adoptability?
What are the messages?

To Whom? (who is the audience that CRE-MSD focus on?)
Workplaces (small, medium and large)
Workers in stationary vs. non-fixed jobs
Different sectors (transportation, construction, manufacturing)
How do we determine the organizational context in order to ensure a relatively easy adoption of knowledge?

By Whom? (who are the major communicators of the research?)
What is the role of the knowledge broker
What is the role of intermediaries (HSA consultants, clinicians such as ergonomists and kinesiologists).
What is the role of the researchers?

How? (what techniques of KTE will be used?)
Modelling behavior – worker to worker
Including the users of research in the research process
Dissemination of communication products
Using opinion leaders

With What Effect? (how will the effectiveness of the techniques be judged?)
How do we set up and administer an effective qualitative and quantitative evaluation framework?