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Mobilising knowledge for tangible benefits with Inbal Itzhak (Episode 88)
Episode 8810th March 2026 • Research Adjacent • Sarah McLusky
00:00:00 00:38:13

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Inbal Itzhak is a Senior Knowledge Mobilisation Specialist at the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging. She translates research into accessible insights which improve brain health and care

Sarah and Inbal talk about

  1. Why the essence and ethics of participatory research are the same, no matter what you call it
  2. The magic that can spark when you find the right collaborators
  3. How Inbal decided she wanted to work in knowledge translation before she discovered it was an actual job
  4. Recognising and drawing on different kinds of expertise to ensure research gets used and makes a difference

Find out more

  1. Find full show notes, the transcript and timestamps on the episode webpage
  2. Connect with Inbal on LinkedIn
  3. Find out more about the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging

About Research Adjacent

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  2. Email a comment, question or suggestion
  3. Leave a voice note
  4. Post a review on Podchaser
  5. Sign up to the Research Adjacent newsletter


Mentioned in this episode:

Member of the Month: Duncan Yellowlees, DY Training

Let’s put rubbish presentations in the bin – where they belong. Get in touch with Duncan for specialist research presentation skills training www.duncanyellowlees.com

Come along to our Manchester networking event

Join host Sarah McLusky and fellow research-adjacent professionals on Thursday 12 March 2026 at 5.30pm. Find out more and register here https://researchadjacent.circle.so/c/open-events/manchester-research-adjacent-community-networking

Transcripts

Inbal Itzhak:

I like to say that I invented the field of knowledge

Inbal Itzhak:

translation all on my own, inside my head without knowing that it already existed

Inbal Itzhak:

I was just asking myself what is the value of my research out there in the world?

Inbal Itzhak:

How does society get anything back from it?

Inbal Itzhak:

Family care partners of somebody living with dementia, for example,

Inbal Itzhak:

they are experts at that, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

They are the experts at the experience of caregiving.

Inbal Itzhak:

I think without the citizen advisory group, the product that we would've had in

Inbal Itzhak:

the end would've been very scientifically accurate and probably quite inaccessible.

Sarah McLusky:

Hello there.

Sarah McLusky:

I'm Sarah McLusky and this is Research Adjacent.

Sarah McLusky:

Each episode I talk to amazing research adjacent professionals about what

Sarah McLusky:

they do and why it makes a difference.

Sarah McLusky:

Keep listening to find out why we think the research adjacent space

Sarah McLusky:

is where the real magic happens.

Sarah McLusky:

Hello there and welcome to Research Adjacent episode 88.

Sarah McLusky:

Last time we were in the USA and today we scoot up to Canada to

Sarah McLusky:

Toronto to meet my guest Inbal Itzhak.

Sarah McLusky:

Inbal is a senior knowledge mobilization specialist for the Canadian Consortium

Sarah McLusky:

on Neurodegeneration and Aging.

Sarah McLusky:

Now, if you're based in the UK, you might have already figured

Sarah McLusky:

out why I wanted to talk to Inbal.

Sarah McLusky:

Knowledge mobilization is a term that I hadn't really come across before.

Sarah McLusky:

So I want you to find out exactly what Inbal does.

Sarah McLusky:

The answer as you'll hear, is that Inbal does a lot of what

Sarah McLusky:

I'd call research communication, engagement, and involvement.

Sarah McLusky:

She helps researchers to plan, do, and share their research in ways

Sarah McLusky:

that lead to tangible benefits for people living with neurodegenerative

Sarah McLusky:

conditions like dementia.

Sarah McLusky:

In our conversation, we talk about some of the language and practice

Sarah McLusky:

differences between the UK and Canada, why knowledge translation was a

Sarah McLusky:

dream job for Inbal in the sense that she literally dreamt it up before

Sarah McLusky:

discovering that it was an actual thing.

Sarah McLusky:

And why building strong relationships with health professionals and people with

Sarah McLusky:

lived experience makes both the research and the knowledge translation better.

Sarah McLusky:

Listen on to hear Inbal's story.

Sarah McLusky:

Welcome along to the podcast Inbal.

Sarah McLusky:

It is fantastic to have you join us here all the way from Canada.

Sarah McLusky:

So I wonder if we could begin by just hearing a little bit about

Sarah McLusky:

who you are and what you do.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yes, so I'm a senior knowledge mobilization specialist.

Inbal Itzhak:

It's a very long title.

Inbal Itzhak:

I work at the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging.

Inbal Itzhak:

It's a Canadian research network that focuses on dementia research

Inbal Itzhak:

and brain health research.

Inbal Itzhak:

And my role is basically to support the researchers in the

Inbal Itzhak:

network when they have findings to develop for knowledge mobilization.

Inbal Itzhak:

In other words to help them bring this science to use.

Inbal Itzhak:

The main two audiences that I help them reach are health professionals

Inbal Itzhak:

who can make use of the findings and the research, and people with

Inbal Itzhak:

lived experience of dementia.

Inbal Itzhak:

So families, people living with the illness and the general public as well.

Inbal Itzhak:

Because this is a condition that is very much of interest.

Inbal Itzhak:

It's so prevalent and the numbers are growing, so it is very much of

Inbal Itzhak:

interest for the general public and who wouldn't be interested in learning

Inbal Itzhak:

how to keep their brain healthy.

Inbal Itzhak:

So my, my role is really to work with the researchers who are,

Inbal Itzhak:

in not all, but many cases, not equipped to do that on their own.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah, they don't have the training, the, perhaps they don't have the

Inbal Itzhak:

time, the resources, the capacity.

Inbal Itzhak:

So that's my role.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Fantastic.

Sarah McLusky:

I've really interesting, one of the things that I love exploring on

Sarah McLusky:

this podcast is all the different language and the descriptions, the

Sarah McLusky:

ways things all merge together.

Sarah McLusky:

So your job role is knowledge mobilization.

Sarah McLusky:

And that is a term that doesn't get used very much in the UK even though it

Sarah McLusky:

sounds like the activities that you're describing are very much similar sorts

Sarah McLusky:

of things that we do in the UK, but under different terms like public engagement

Sarah McLusky:

or knowledge exchange, or research communication or things like that.

Sarah McLusky:

So tell me a bit about, is knowledge mobilization, is that

Sarah McLusky:

a commonly used term in Canada?

Sarah McLusky:

Is that?

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

So this is an affliction of a relatively new field.

Inbal Itzhak:

You don't find this issue with terminology as much when you look

Inbal Itzhak:

at very established professional fields like, I don't know, nursing,

Inbal Itzhak:

for example, to go not too far off.

Inbal Itzhak:

So yeah, knowledge mobilization is currently the leading term

Inbal Itzhak:

for this line of work in Canada.

Inbal Itzhak:

Knowledge translation has been the term for a long time in the context

Inbal Itzhak:

of health and in recent years the funding the Canadian Funding Agency

Inbal Itzhak:

for Health Research has aligned by using the term knowledge mobilization.

Inbal Itzhak:

They moved away from using translation.

Inbal Itzhak:

But if you look at the scientific literature of the field that comes out

Inbal Itzhak:

of Canada and there's a lot, both of these terms will come up, knowledge

Inbal Itzhak:

mobilization and knowledge translation, and yes, I understand that I actually

Inbal Itzhak:

don't notice if it's specific to the UK or just, or Europe in general.

Inbal Itzhak:

I know there's a lot of implementation science as used, and I'd say

Inbal Itzhak:

knowledge mobilization is part of implementation science, but it's not

Inbal Itzhak:

so much the implementation part itself.

Inbal Itzhak:

And yeah, there's a lot of other terms and knowledge exchange is used here as well,

Inbal Itzhak:

but it's maybe a bit more broad, maybe a bit more in the context of private sector.

Sarah McLusky:

Okay.

Inbal Itzhak:

Using scientific, but those terms are very, there's what they're

Inbal Itzhak:

published about by scientists who work in this field, but what's really being used

Inbal Itzhak:

by practitioners and I don't know, health professionals and people who are maybe

Inbal Itzhak:

not the scientific leaders of the field.

Inbal Itzhak:

It moves around a little bit and then again, it's an affliction of a new field.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

So to help us understand then how we map what you do onto things that, that

Sarah McLusky:

maybe, so most of my listeners are in the UK although there are, shout out

Sarah McLusky:

to anybody listening elsewhere in the world 'cause I know there are some, tell

Sarah McLusky:

us a bit on a kind of day-to-day basis about the sorts of things that you do.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah I will say that anyone with similar training to mine

Inbal Itzhak:

is probably doing different work.

Inbal Itzhak:

Point being that I can describe the day-to-day work, and I'll get into

Inbal Itzhak:

some example, but I will say that other people with the same professional

Inbal Itzhak:

certificate in other organizations are probably doing different things.

Sarah McLusky:

Interesting.

Inbal Itzhak:

Or slightly different things.

Inbal Itzhak:

Again, this is not, this is a field that's growing and coming into its own, so it's

Inbal Itzhak:

there's a lot of variety or variation, but what I do in the day-to-day.

Inbal Itzhak:

So an example is researchers come to us and say that they have some

Inbal Itzhak:

findings or that they have a project that they would like to eventually

Inbal Itzhak:

bring to families living with dementia.

Inbal Itzhak:

And we would help them engage some people who are of that audience to

Inbal Itzhak:

help together develop the kinds of tools or knowledge products that

Inbal Itzhak:

these people can eventually use.

Inbal Itzhak:

So we can develop with them things like infographics or videos or

Inbal Itzhak:

public talks that are adapted to those specific audiences.

Inbal Itzhak:

We will work with them on how to write.

Inbal Itzhak:

The explain and describe and share their science in plain language.

Inbal Itzhak:

So people outside of the scientific field can understand what they're talking about.

Inbal Itzhak:

We will help them connect with people from this target audience.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I gave the example of people with lived experience of dementia, but it

Inbal Itzhak:

could also be health professionals and what did they need, how to distill.

Inbal Itzhak:

Scientists wanna always share all the details.

Inbal Itzhak:

It comes from good ethics.

Inbal Itzhak:

But you need to know how to speak to an audience who's not a scientific

Inbal Itzhak:

audience, and we help them adapt their content to those other audiences.

Inbal Itzhak:

Does that give you an idea?

Sarah McLusky:

It does, yes.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah, and it does sound, as I say it, it's very much, sounds like it's

Sarah McLusky:

mapping on to, yeah, some of what you're talking about there is what we would

Sarah McLusky:

maybe call research communication.

Sarah McLusky:

Some of what you're talking about there is what we would maybe call public or patient

Sarah McLusky:

or stakeholder involvement as well.

Sarah McLusky:

So yeah, it very similar types of work, but just slightly

Sarah McLusky:

different terminology for it.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

But I think that's really useful to.

Inbal Itzhak:

I did learn recently that it, the distinction between

Inbal Itzhak:

using the word involvement and engagement I guess became a thing.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah, it's definitely a thing.

Inbal Itzhak:

Between Canada and Europe, i, I, we did a session in collaboration

Inbal Itzhak:

with colleagues from Europe and the US, at an international scientific

Inbal Itzhak:

conference and the European person told us very clearly that the word, they

Inbal Itzhak:

have to use the word involvement because that's how they've defined that role.

Inbal Itzhak:

But as we go into the details, we learn that what, when we say engagement and

Inbal Itzhak:

when the Europeans say involvement, we really mean the same thing.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah, I think so.

Sarah McLusky:

And it's interesting that yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

There are some nuances that I'm not gonna go into about, yeah, which

Sarah McLusky:

one you use in which situation.

Sarah McLusky:

But it's interesting that you say this knowledge mobilization in Canada is

Sarah McLusky:

a sort of a new and emerging field.

Sarah McLusky:

Maybe you could give us a little bit of the story of, how this

Sarah McLusky:

has become a thing in Canada.

Sarah McLusky:

What are the drivers for it?

Sarah McLusky:

Why is this, is this something that's just been happening in the

Sarah McLusky:

last few years or has it been, 10, 20 years it's been going on?

Inbal Itzhak:

I'm not sure I'm qualified.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah,

Sarah McLusky:

That's okay.

Inbal Itzhak:

But so yeah, I invite listeners if they wanna know the details

Inbal Itzhak:

and the accurate points about this to really go ahead and look up some

Inbal Itzhak:

of the leading work done in Canada.

Inbal Itzhak:

But I'd say it's been around growing as a scientific and practice

Inbal Itzhak:

field for about 20, 25 years.

Inbal Itzhak:

Approximately.

Inbal Itzhak:

And.

Inbal Itzhak:

It started, you, depending where you come from, you could say it

Inbal Itzhak:

started in different disciplines.

Inbal Itzhak:

I'm in the world of neuroscience and health.

Inbal Itzhak:

So I know that a lot of work has been done in knowledge

Inbal Itzhak:

translation in the health world.

Inbal Itzhak:

To, with the goal of accelerating scientific knowledge being used in

Inbal Itzhak:

the health field and health practice.

Inbal Itzhak:

As a field of practice, like a professional field.

Inbal Itzhak:

I think that's even a newer thing relatively speaking.

Inbal Itzhak:

I was recently at a conference, a knowledge mobilization conference when

Inbal Itzhak:

they did this little exercise asking people to stand up if they've been a

Inbal Itzhak:

practitioner in knowledge mobilization in the last two years, five years, and as

Inbal Itzhak:

the number of years increase, yeah, more and more people sat down and I think the

Inbal Itzhak:

few people who stood up at the very end have been working in it as practitioners

Inbal Itzhak:

for the last 20 years but that was rare.

Inbal Itzhak:

Also, the other thing is, again, to go to terminology is that the titles of

Inbal Itzhak:

these jobs could be very different, and they're doing the same thing, or they

Inbal Itzhak:

could be very different also in what they're doing, so they could be working

Inbal Itzhak:

on different parts of this maybe continuum of work from science to use and practice.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Because there's lots of different stages along the way and lots of different, as

Sarah McLusky:

you say, some people might have more of an emphasis on working with one particular

Sarah McLusky:

audience, or they might have more of an emphasis on producing materials or.

Inbal Itzhak:

And it depends, where you are located with the role.

Inbal Itzhak:

So one of my best collaborations has been working with someone with similar training

Inbal Itzhak:

doing a similar role, but they are sitting in a health organization, where

Inbal Itzhak:

I sitting in a research organization.

Inbal Itzhak:

So this person is the knowledge knowledge mobilization specialist in a health

Inbal Itzhak:

organization working directly with health professionals where, whereas I'm

Inbal Itzhak:

working directly with the researchers, so the two of us connecting has been

Inbal Itzhak:

one of the our best collaborations.

Inbal Itzhak:

We understand, we speak the same language, we understand each other.

Inbal Itzhak:

She can give me input from what the health professionals are looking for.

Inbal Itzhak:

What are the gaps?

Inbal Itzhak:

What are their needs?

Inbal Itzhak:

What are the tools that they prefer?

Inbal Itzhak:

What formats of information do they prefer?

Inbal Itzhak:

And I can bring her what new science is coming down the pipeline and

Inbal Itzhak:

then we do this magic together to create things that are actually

Inbal Itzhak:

useful for the health professionals.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

That does sound like a really valuable connection there.

Sarah McLusky:

And as you say, it's often when you connect the dots, sometimes the most

Sarah McLusky:

valuable person isn't necessarily your target audience, if that makes sense.

Sarah McLusky:

The people that you want to reach at the end of the day.

Inbal Itzhak:

But you reminded me actually of a point that I think maybe

Inbal Itzhak:

is interesting for this podcast in particular 'cause as we're talking, it

Inbal Itzhak:

made me think of how much relationship building is a big part of my role, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

Connecting with people who are in the interest holders side of

Inbal Itzhak:

things or health practitioners or community organizations who are not

Inbal Itzhak:

connected to the research world.

Inbal Itzhak:

And then also building relationships with researchers and building trust

Inbal Itzhak:

with them that I can do this kind of work and represent it accurately and

Inbal Itzhak:

without losing scientific rigor and so much is relationship building.

Inbal Itzhak:

And as someone who is trained as a researcher, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

I have a PhD in cognitive neuroscience and I was trained as a scientist and

Inbal Itzhak:

as a researcher, and I feel like this particular skill of relationship building

Inbal Itzhak:

has not in my scientific training, I felt like it was used very minimally.

Inbal Itzhak:

Whereas in my role now, I use it all the time and I enjoy it.

Inbal Itzhak:

I enjoy the relationship building side of things.

Inbal Itzhak:

And so I think, when you're talking about research adjacent I don't

Inbal Itzhak:

think that, I suppose it really depends what research one is doing.

Inbal Itzhak:

But when I was being trained as a researcher, I didn't feel like I had to

Inbal Itzhak:

use this relationship building skill much.

Inbal Itzhak:

But in my current role, which is supporting research becoming useful,

Inbal Itzhak:

the impact of scientific findings, I feel like relationship building is

Inbal Itzhak:

really central and I don't see that there are a lot of roles in the big

Inbal Itzhak:

academic system who are doing that.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

I think that this comes up so frequently is the importance of having these people

Sarah McLusky:

like you who can connect people and who can build those relationships and

Sarah McLusky:

actually both how important that work is, but also how time consuming it can be

Sarah McLusky:

and how invisible it can be because you don't, you're not producing something.

Sarah McLusky:

That you can point to and say, this is the thing that we've made, or

Sarah McLusky:

at least it might be years down the line before you come to a thing

Sarah McLusky:

that you can point to and say.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

So

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah, it's a hard thing to report on, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

'Cause it's hard to grasp, but then when it bears fruit, and

Inbal Itzhak:

sometimes it takes a very long time.

Inbal Itzhak:

But when it does bear fruit.

Inbal Itzhak:

Amazing things can happen, but yes, thank you for acknowledging

Inbal Itzhak:

that it is invisible work.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Invisible, but really important.

Sarah McLusky:

So when you say that isn't something that you, that's a part of you that you weren't

Sarah McLusky:

using when you worked as a researcher, was that what drew you to doing this work?

Sarah McLusky:

Or was it something else?

Inbal Itzhak:

Maybe instinctively it was, but I don't think I was aware of that.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah, I, the thing that drew me to knowledge mobilization and out of

Inbal Itzhak:

the researcher seat and into the knowledge mobilizer seat was that

Inbal Itzhak:

I felt that my research, I was just asking myself what is the value of

Inbal Itzhak:

my research out there in the world?

Inbal Itzhak:

So I spent some public money.

Inbal Itzhak:

A lot of research is funded by public funds, we spent some money, and then what?

Inbal Itzhak:

What is the value?

Inbal Itzhak:

How does society get anything back from it?

Inbal Itzhak:

How does anybody get anything?

Inbal Itzhak:

It really bothered me that there was no connection, and I still love neuroscience

Inbal Itzhak:

and I'm still very interested in some of the fundamental questions about

Inbal Itzhak:

how cognition works in the brain, but I don't, this wasn't, it wasn't

Inbal Itzhak:

enough of a motivator for me to stay in that field as a researcher, because

Inbal Itzhak:

I really felt that it's important that the work has some kind of impact

Inbal Itzhak:

value outside of the discovery itself.

Inbal Itzhak:

And sometimes, discoveries need to build one on top of the other, on top

Inbal Itzhak:

of the other until they, they really have significant societal benefits.

Inbal Itzhak:

And that's totally fine.

Inbal Itzhak:

But societal benefits can even be scientific literacy just for

Inbal Itzhak:

people to have a certain awareness of what the scientific world does.

Inbal Itzhak:

Why is it doing things the way it's doing it?

Inbal Itzhak:

We saw some issues with scientific literacy during the pandemic,

Inbal Itzhak:

so there's value even in that.

Inbal Itzhak:

Not everything that we share about science with the public has to

Inbal Itzhak:

always be, the solution to a disease.

Inbal Itzhak:

The big things.

Inbal Itzhak:

Of course, we want those things, but even sharing about the scientific process is

Inbal Itzhak:

of value t o the world outside of science.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah, definitely.

Sarah McLusky:

And I think, as you say, because sometimes those, those tangible benefits can be

Sarah McLusky:

a long way down the line, can't they?

Sarah McLusky:

And that's always a question that comes up is people are like, they'll leave

Sarah McLusky:

this work until the end of the research 'cause they think that once they get

Sarah McLusky:

to the end of the research, that's when they'll have something to say.

Sarah McLusky:

But actually, if you're looking at things which build relationships and

Sarah McLusky:

which build trust over time, you can't just wait till the end of the research.

Sarah McLusky:

Or if you want to do research that's in collaboration with the people

Sarah McLusky:

who might be able to use it you also can't just wait till the end.

Sarah McLusky:

So yeah, it has to be baked into the process, doesn't it?

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

And there, there's a term that's being used in the Canadian world of knowledge

Inbal Itzhak:

mobilization and knowledge translation, and a lot has been written on it called

Inbal Itzhak:

Integrated Knowledge Translation.

Inbal Itzhak:

And there are other approaches that have been compared to it, like participatory

Inbal Itzhak:

research is a well known one, but in, in the philosophy of integrated knowledge

Inbal Itzhak:

translation, if I hope I'm representing it well, the idea is that the target

Inbal Itzhak:

knowledge user is engaged in the research process from early stages in the research.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

Why is that?

Inbal Itzhak:

One aspect is that those target knowledge users who are participating

Inbal Itzhak:

are more likely to really pick it up and use it afterwards.

Inbal Itzhak:

'Cause they understood from the process.

Inbal Itzhak:

But of course you can't do that with every single practitioner, let's say.

Inbal Itzhak:

I don't know if you're talking about physicians, you can involve

Inbal Itzhak:

a few in a particular project.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

But to me, the biggest thing about integrated knowledge translation or

Inbal Itzhak:

participatory research is that the long term involvement or engagement

Inbal Itzhak:

of these target knowledge users in the research projects, in the research in

Inbal Itzhak:

general, hopefully should steer research questions and research and efforts

Inbal Itzhak:

towards questions that are very meaningful to these knowledge user audiences.

Inbal Itzhak:

And that's.

Inbal Itzhak:

That's really the biggest thing.

Inbal Itzhak:

Sometimes researchers come up with some fundamental research questions

Inbal Itzhak:

that are really early inquiry and they, it makes sense on its own.

Inbal Itzhak:

Those are foundational pieces.

Inbal Itzhak:

But if we want to make, to benefit health professionals and if we wanna

Inbal Itzhak:

benefit ultimately the people that they work with, the population,

Inbal Itzhak:

the public who gets treated.

Inbal Itzhak:

We should have the, those people engaged so that they help researchers

Inbal Itzhak:

in a way ask the right questions or the relevant questions.

Inbal Itzhak:

Or sometimes just tweak those questions to make the outcomes than of that

Inbal Itzhak:

research be more relevant and more useful.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

So I wonder if, do you have any examples of things that you've done

Sarah McLusky:

through this current role through the dementia research that you're working

Sarah McLusky:

with at the moment where something like that has made a difference?

Sarah McLusky:

So whether it's been, some user involvement has helped to slightly

Sarah McLusky:

change the questions, or you've created some materials in collaboration

Sarah McLusky:

that have been really useful.

Inbal Itzhak:

So a lot of the work that I've done, was on creating

Inbal Itzhak:

knowledge mobilization products.

Inbal Itzhak:

And in those cases, it wasn't changing research questions themselves.

Inbal Itzhak:

But it was definitely changing how we present research

Inbal Itzhak:

findings to people outside.

Inbal Itzhak:

And one example was educational online program that created for building

Inbal Itzhak:

health literacy around brain health.

Inbal Itzhak:

So it's called Brain Health Pro.

Inbal Itzhak:

It's not a commercial product.

Inbal Itzhak:

You can look it up online.

Inbal Itzhak:

And then we had a citizen advisory group of older adults who reviewed

Inbal Itzhak:

the entire content that was produced for this educational program, intended

Inbal Itzhak:

for older adults like themselves.

Inbal Itzhak:

They had a committee and they reviewed the entire content and there were cases

Inbal Itzhak:

there where they would triage the content.

Inbal Itzhak:

Let's say researchers sent them a chapter about vascular and heart health

Inbal Itzhak:

and how it's related to brain health.

Inbal Itzhak:

And it's supposed to be content that then people who are not scientists who

Inbal Itzhak:

want to learn about how to maintain their brain health are learning from.

Inbal Itzhak:

So these, this advisory committee reads the content and often they would

Inbal Itzhak:

just give comments and feedback to the researchers and say, explain this,

Inbal Itzhak:

the terminologies too scientific, this is, I don't need to know this

Inbal Itzhak:

to know the bottom line, et cetera.

Inbal Itzhak:

But there were some cases where a chapter wouldn't even pass the triage.

Inbal Itzhak:

Ooh.

Inbal Itzhak:

They the people from the committee would doing the triage, would send it

Inbal Itzhak:

back to the researcher and say, we're not sharing this with the committee.

Inbal Itzhak:

It needs to be simplified more, explain more, less details explain in terminology

Inbal Itzhak:

that an average person could understand.

Inbal Itzhak:

And then I would be working with the researchers.

Inbal Itzhak:

And it was, I'm not saying this to disrespect any of the researchers

Inbal Itzhak:

involved, just to say that really this is a skillset that's different than

Sarah McLusky:

It really is

Inbal Itzhak:

being a scientist and in the process, the researchers learned

Inbal Itzhak:

more about science communication, and they had me as a support link

Inbal Itzhak:

to help adapt the chapters, bring it back to the committee and there were

Inbal Itzhak:

multiple rounds like that of feedback.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I think without the citizen advisory group, the product that we would've had in

Inbal Itzhak:

the end would've been very scientifically accurate and probably quite inaccessible.

Sarah McLusky:

That sounds like fantastically useful process.

Sarah McLusky:

It reminds me of when I was first doing research communication work, and I

Sarah McLusky:

had a really brutal editor, and at the time I would just dread sending stuff

Sarah McLusky:

to her because it would come back with so many corrections and it felt so

Sarah McLusky:

pedantic, but I learned so much from it.

Sarah McLusky:

It made me a much, much better writer.

Sarah McLusky:

And I think it's always, whenever I am training people in research

Sarah McLusky:

communication, I can give people the basics as I'm sure you do.

Sarah McLusky:

You can say you've gotta use not use jargon and yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Until you actually have that back and forth process with

Sarah McLusky:

somebody who, who can say.

Sarah McLusky:

They'll take that.

Sarah McLusky:

I'm sure those researchers took that feedback on board much more

Sarah McLusky:

than if it had come from you.

Sarah McLusky:

No disrespect meant to you

Inbal Itzhak:

Right, but it does.

Inbal Itzhak:

No but it has a validity to it.

Inbal Itzhak:

That comes from expertise.

Inbal Itzhak:

We like to say that we're all experts when we sit on a team that in includes

Inbal Itzhak:

people who are not researchers.

Inbal Itzhak:

But are people with lived experience of dementia, family care partners of

Inbal Itzhak:

somebody living with dementia, for example, they are experts at that, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

They are the experts at the experience of caregiving.

Inbal Itzhak:

And sometimes some researchers also have lived experience of their own, of course.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I, we do not dismiss that.

Inbal Itzhak:

It's important to acknowledge the idea being is that there's a variety of

Inbal Itzhak:

expertise, and knowledge and perspectives.

Inbal Itzhak:

And the more we're able to combine all of them, listen to all of them,

Inbal Itzhak:

learn from all of them, the end products are gonna be more relevant

Inbal Itzhak:

to the people who meant to use them.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah McLusky:

More useful in the end, which is what we all want, isn't it?

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

So you said you've hinted there at that you were originally a researcher.

Sarah McLusky:

So tell us a bit about you.

Sarah McLusky:

You started out in neuroscience yourself.

Sarah McLusky:

What made you want to transfer to the work that you're doing now or was it

Sarah McLusky:

something that just evolved over time?

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

It's a little of a funny story because I like to say that I invented the field

Inbal Itzhak:

of knowledge translation all on my own, inside my head without knowing that it

Inbal Itzhak:

already existed and somebody's already come up with it before, and I invented

Inbal Itzhak:

it for myself inside my imagination.

Inbal Itzhak:

I just was going through this thinking process around the end of my PhD that

Inbal Itzhak:

I really want the scientific findings to have use in the outside world.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I was thinking, what if people who need science would come and talk to

Inbal Itzhak:

me and I will help them understand it.

Inbal Itzhak:

And a friend of mine told me it's a thing already.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I described it like that.

Inbal Itzhak:

She said go Google knowledge translation and you'll see.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I did.

Inbal Itzhak:

And it was a big light bulb.

Inbal Itzhak:

And then I just really looked into opportunities to

Inbal Itzhak:

learn more about that field.

Sarah McLusky:

And then, so in terms of making that transition, was that a fairly

Sarah McLusky:

straightforward process or were there any kind of, did you do qualifications?

Sarah McLusky:

Did you just go and get experience?

Sarah McLusky:

How did you navigate that?

Inbal Itzhak:

I did both actually.

Inbal Itzhak:

Initially I I worked, I basically worked on my own.

Inbal Itzhak:

I tried to get a postdoc doing knowledge mobilization research.

Inbal Itzhak:

I thought that would be good training and a logical transition, but I

Inbal Itzhak:

was not able to secure funding.

Inbal Itzhak:

So I couldn't do that kind of postdoc.

Inbal Itzhak:

And so I decided I'm gonna do it anyways.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I made myself a little website and a profile and found one volunteer project.

Inbal Itzhak:

I say volunteer just to be very explicit about the fact that nobody was paying

Inbal Itzhak:

me and I volunteered myself to do this.

Inbal Itzhak:

I knew someone who was working as a speech pathologist and I asked her, what are some

Inbal Itzhak:

of your knowledge needs as a practitioner team, you and your colleagues?

Inbal Itzhak:

Where do you feel like you'd like to learn more about?

Inbal Itzhak:

And I'll go and do the research for you and I'll come and explain to you what

Inbal Itzhak:

I've found and we'll have a discussion and see if it's useful for you.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I did that and it was.

Inbal Itzhak:

I think it was a perfect thing because it was really getting my hands wet with what

Inbal Itzhak:

I imagined myself that I want to be doing.

Inbal Itzhak:

It still took a while from that point to really doing it for

Inbal Itzhak:

real or, in, in a real position.

Inbal Itzhak:

I eventually.

Inbal Itzhak:

Was lucky enough in my previous job to have been to be sent for a knowledge

Inbal Itzhak:

translation professional certificate at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto.

Inbal Itzhak:

And the certificate is from University of Toronto.

Inbal Itzhak:

There's a excellent program there led by Melanie Barwick.

Inbal Itzhak:

And they have these professional certificate programs that is a week

Inbal Itzhak:

long and it's really meant for people in similar roles to the one that I

Inbal Itzhak:

have now, people who are working in organizations where they need someone

Inbal Itzhak:

to be that link between science and practice, science and science use.

Inbal Itzhak:

And that was, I think, a really good start.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

But it took a while, to be, and those things cost money, of course, et cetera.

Sarah McLusky:

It does, but I think it's also really useful for anybody

Sarah McLusky:

listening who's thinking about making a transition like this, to understand that

Sarah McLusky:

maybe you need to get some skills, you need to maybe do that voluntary work.

Sarah McLusky:

Certainly when I first came into science communication, I did voluntary work and

Sarah McLusky:

minimum wage work and all of that to get a foot in the door to meet people.

Sarah McLusky:

And yeah, as you say, sometimes it's a qualification that opens the door.

Sarah McLusky:

But yeah, you've got to, you've gotta knock on a few doors.

Sarah McLusky:

You've got to put yourself out there and hone what you're doing.

Inbal Itzhak:

The only thing I would say about that is that it to, I think it's

Inbal Itzhak:

important to mention, I don't like unpaid work, any kind of unpaid work, and nobody

Inbal Itzhak:

does, and I'm not a supporter of that.

Inbal Itzhak:

The reason why I did what I did was because I really needed.

Inbal Itzhak:

I needed the experience, but not just for the CV.

Inbal Itzhak:

I needed the experience for myself to feel, what is it really like?

Inbal Itzhak:

I had this idea in my head of bringing science into use.

Inbal Itzhak:

I had to try it out.

Inbal Itzhak:

And do something and see how that felt and could it really be

Inbal Itzhak:

meaningful to these practitioners.

Inbal Itzhak:

And it was my first attempt.

Inbal Itzhak:

But through discussion with them eventually I think it was of use for them.

Inbal Itzhak:

And it helped me a lot to have a vision of what can be done, and it really

Inbal Itzhak:

actually motivated me to try harder to get into the field as a professional.

Inbal Itzhak:

So I'd say that if people make these choices of doing unpaid

Inbal Itzhak:

work, either to build experience or to get the feeling of it for

Inbal Itzhak:

yourself, just be clear to yourself.

Inbal Itzhak:

Why are you doing it and what limitations you're putting on it.

Inbal Itzhak:

And if at any point you feel like it's becoming abused, then, then you

Inbal Itzhak:

really wanna step away from that.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah McLusky:

That is fantastic advice.

Sarah McLusky:

And as you say, although I always encourage people that if they do want

Sarah McLusky:

to transition from, whatever they're doing now into something quite different,

Sarah McLusky:

it's inevitable you're gonna have to do something to build your skills and

Sarah McLusky:

prove that you can make that leap.

Sarah McLusky:

Otherwise, nobody's gonna give you a job, frankly.

Sarah McLusky:

But but yeah, as you say, putting some limits on it, whether that's in terms

Sarah McLusky:

of the amount of work that you'll do or the level of responsibility, in a

Sarah McLusky:

way that feels good for you because yeah, I have definitely seen as I,

Sarah McLusky:

it sounds like you have as well, some people really being taken advantage

Sarah McLusky:

of in those kind of situations.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

Yeah.

Inbal Itzhak:

And I know that PhD graduates, when they come out and they're trying

Inbal Itzhak:

to transition, they're desperate from some, for some work, and maybe

Inbal Itzhak:

we'll do things for little pay yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

It's a delicate balance.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah.

Sarah McLusky:

So I do like to ask all of my guests on the podcast, but if they had a magic

Sarah McLusky:

wand and they could change something about the world that they work in,

Sarah McLusky:

so perhaps the knowledge mobilization world for you what would you do?

Sarah McLusky:

So you've got unlimited time and money, what would you use your magic wand for?

Inbal Itzhak:

I always had this imagination of a situation whereby

Inbal Itzhak:

there's a, an authority of sorts.

Inbal Itzhak:

We have all sorts of, if you're thinking countrywide, but any

Inbal Itzhak:

country, in any country, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

You have, I don't know, government ministries like a Ministry of

Inbal Itzhak:

Health or science sometimes, and you have funding agencies.

Inbal Itzhak:

What if there was a body that was recognized and well-known and

Inbal Itzhak:

centralized to some extent, whose role was really to take science

Inbal Itzhak:

into use in all fields, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

Knowledge mobilization is done in health and education, in

Inbal Itzhak:

agriculture and you name it.

Inbal Itzhak:

I wish that there was an entity like that.

Inbal Itzhak:

I'm thinking of Canada as my prime example.

Inbal Itzhak:

If imagine there was an entity like that would be known, that would be

Inbal Itzhak:

recognized that also as a brand, when you say to a civilian, Ministry of Health,

Inbal Itzhak:

they know what you're talking about.

Inbal Itzhak:

Whether or not they trust it is a different question.

Inbal Itzhak:

I wish, I'm not sure this model would necessarily work, but I

Inbal Itzhak:

wish there was a way to try it out without, losing all that much.

Inbal Itzhak:

So with a magic wand, I'd definitely try that to have sort of a centralized

Inbal Itzhak:

place where both researchers know that there's a reliable place to

Inbal Itzhak:

go if they wanna communicate their science outward and share it elsewhere.

Inbal Itzhak:

And also a place that would help you as a researcher build relationships

Inbal Itzhak:

with the target knowledge users.

Inbal Itzhak:

And would do this in a systematic way, right?

Inbal Itzhak:

I am one person, or I, and I work with two more people in my team.

Inbal Itzhak:

We're a very small team supporting hundreds of researchers to

Inbal Itzhak:

do knowledge mobilization.

Inbal Itzhak:

Obviously, we don't reach all of them, we can't support all of them, but if

Inbal Itzhak:

there was a system that was built and set up for it, that any researcher

Inbal Itzhak:

in the country would know this is the place to go for science communication.

Inbal Itzhak:

This is the place to go for implementation.

Inbal Itzhak:

But when we have an innovation.

Inbal Itzhak:

And they would know the processes and they could guide us.

Inbal Itzhak:

And then the public and the health professionals and the education

Inbal Itzhak:

professionals will also trust what comes out of that place because it would be

Inbal Itzhak:

known as that authority that does that.

Inbal Itzhak:

So that's my little dream.

Sarah McLusky:

That sounds like a fantastic dream.

Sarah McLusky:

And there was somebody, I'm trying to think who it was in one of the

Sarah McLusky:

earlier episodes, who wanted to create something which made that

Sarah McLusky:

connecting of researchers with their potential users of the research.

Sarah McLusky:

Some kind of network or connecting thing for that.

Sarah McLusky:

So yeah there's definitely appetite for it.

Sarah McLusky:

I dunno how we would do it, but it is a magic wand after all.

Sarah McLusky:

Yeah, give it a wave and see, thank you so much, Inbal, for taking the time to come

Sarah McLusky:

along and tell us about the work that you do and what this knowledge mobilization,

Sarah McLusky:

engagement, involvement, impact, whatever you call it in Canada, is like.

Sarah McLusky:

If people want to find out more about you and the work that you do,

Sarah McLusky:

whereabouts would you send them?

Inbal Itzhak:

If they people are interested in the work that we do

Inbal Itzhak:

with the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging, they

Inbal Itzhak:

can go to our website ccna-ccnv.ca

Inbal Itzhak:

and I can be found on LinkedIn with my name.

Sarah McLusky:

Fantastic.

Sarah McLusky:

We'll get links to both of those and put them in the show notes so

Sarah McLusky:

people can come and connect with you if they want to find out more.

Sarah McLusky:

So thank you so much for taking the time and sharing all the

Sarah McLusky:

work that you've been doing.

Sarah McLusky:

It's really interesting.

Inbal Itzhak:

My pleasure.

Inbal Itzhak:

Thank you.

Sarah McLusky:

Thanks for listening to Research Adjacent.

Sarah McLusky:

If you're listening in a podcast app, please check you're subscribed and

Sarah McLusky:

then use the links in the episode description to find full show notes

Sarah McLusky:

and to follow the podcast on LinkedIn.

Sarah McLusky:

You can also find all the links and other episodes at www.researchadjacent.com.

Sarah McLusky:

Research Adjacent is presented and produced by Sarah McLusky,

Sarah McLusky:

and the theme music is by Lemon Music Studios on Pixabay.

Sarah McLusky:

And you, yes you, get a big gold star for listening right to the end.

Sarah McLusky:

See you next time.

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