Reading Time: 2 minutes

Re-Framing KEI: Fostering a Culture of Care, Critical Thinking and Change through Decolonial Perspectives

This project offers a critical intervention in the conceptualisation, role and function of Knowledge Exchange and Impact (KEI), problematising an approach that uncritically instrumentalises ‘benefit’ from research outputs. KEI accounts for 25% of the overall score awarded to each REF submission, thereby contributing to a UK University’s national and international status.  Rapid changes to the research environment have had positive and negative consequences for KEI, prioritising and valuing socially useful research, but potentially reinforcing existing hierarchies and inequalities (e.g. researcher/recipient; Global North/Global South).  These mixed ‘impacts’ of KEI activities have not previously been systematically gathered or analysed through a decolonial lens. This project aims to address this gap by reviewing KEI work through decolonial approaches to structural hierarchies and epistemic inequities.

‘Re-framing KEI’ engages three groups across the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow, and the University of St Andrews:

  1. Academic research-active staff
  2. Research support staff
  3. GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) staff, engaging simultaneously with academic researchers and non-academic, external audiences.

Our aims are to:

  1. create opportunities for critical thinking and conversations between colleagues to explore and address structural issues impacting KEI and research cultures, as identified in our literature review.
  2. influence UoE’s KEI landscape to challenge definitions of what counts as ‘knowledge’ and ‘benefit,’ and identify gaps in training resources and guidance for KEI leads with responsibilities for supporting and funding KEI.
  3. combine decolonial perspectives with shared knowledge, experience and data, to consider what we can do differently, leading to more ethical approaches to KEI at UoE.
  4. produce a co-created framework for KEI that supports ethical and equitable partnerships and impact.

 

This project was facilitated by InFrame, the Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture [grant number 228092/Z/23/Z], which is led by the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews.