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Professor Tom Sorrell

Knowledge brokering between bankers and researchers

“This is not the only project my colleagues are working on, so we need someone to help us to build and maintain our key stakeholder relationships.” - Professor Tom Sorell, University of Birmingham

Professor Tom Sorell has applied for many research council grants over the years, but this is the first time he has requested a ‘Knowledge Broker’, - known as the Impact Fellow - to support his research impact. On the advice of co-investigator, Professor Karen Rowlingson, and drawing on the experience of colleagues at the University of Birmingham’s Third Sector Research Centre, the team has developed a specialist Impact Fellow post. The post will be exclusively dedicated to building networks and facilitating knowledge exchange between the research team and end-users.

Professor Sorell is the John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham and Director for the Centre of the Study of Global Ethics. He is a philosopher working with an economist and a social policy researcher - Professor Andrew Mullineux and Professor Karen Rowlingson – on the AHRC funded research project ‘Responsibilities, Ethics, and the Financial Crisis’. The project brings a multi-disciplinary approach to explore the complex issues behind how the banks operated before the financial crisis and whether they violated their ethical responsibilities, not only to customers and clients, but society as a whole. Part of the project will also delve into questions such as: do banks have a responsibility for the very poor? And what might they do in future to facilitate financial inclusion?

The very clear sector focus of the research topic meant that identifying the users and beneficiaries of the research was quite easy. “Many names and specific public policy organisations came up as I was developing the research context and case for support,” says Professor Sorell. “The Pathways to Impact complement these sections and creates a clear link between the audiences identified and the channels and activities that are used to engage with them.”

Top Tip:
It is important that you have thought about different audiences and how to reach them within your Pathways to Impact.

Professor Sorell and his co-researchers on the project have between them a broad and varied contact book of national and international networks that includes people in Government departments, multi-national businesses and the financial sector. Given this wealth of existing contacts why do they feel they need the Impact Fellow? Professor Sorell explains:

“It is important to have regular contact and to keep the two-way flow of knowledge to help disseminate our ideas directly and to receive feedback from people within the sector. This is not the only project my colleagues are working on, so we need someone to help us to build and maintain our key stakeholder relationships.”

The total cost of the research grant awarded to the project is just under £700,000. Professor Sorell requested £50,000 to fund 100 days of an Impact Fellow over the course of the three-year research grant. This was queried by peer reviewers when the application was refereed. “The knowledge broker is not a familiar concept among philosophers,” explains Professor Sorell. In his response to these comments he was able to refer to the innovation of social science colleagues who had successfully employed a knowledge broker in their research centre, which helped him to achieve a successful outcome.

“Philosophy should engage with people’s lives, which is why I want my research to make a difference to policy,” says Professor Sorell. “I prefer mixing philosophy with policy work, because the two together have a better chance of having an impact than either by itself. The knowledge broker model - a model we have taken from another discipline – will, we hope, magnify that impact.”

Institution: University of Birmingham
Funding council: AHRC


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