Knowledge brokers and how to communicate knowledge in 2010

The importance of using healthcare evidence by policymakers is widely recognized [1,2]. For over a decade, several strategies to improve the use of knowledge by policy makers have been promoted [3,4]. Among them, the use of individuals called “intermediaries” or “knowledge brokers” is presented as a potential strategy [5,6]. Situated at the organizational interface, these actors benefit from a strategic position allowing easier access to external knowledge [7]. Therefore, they must develop sufficient skills to be able to properly take profit of all opportunities to create the value for their organization. In fact, many authors consider brokers as true knowledge integrators that assess, interpret, synthesize, exploit and transfer relevant knowledge. Despite the availability of several studies that stress the importance of the multifaceted role of brokers, few have explored how they concretely integrate or “absorb” knowledge and especially, which skills are necessary to ensure the success of such activities. We propose a new conceptual model on research integration by knowledge brokers and provide an empirical testing of this proposed model. This conceptual framework (figure 1) builds upon recent theoretical developments on the concept of knowledge absorptive capacity [8] i.e., starting from the following dimensions: knowledge identification (recognize value of new knowledge), acquisition, assimilation, transformation and knowledge exploitation. To test the conceptual framework, we collected survey data. The sample of 297 respondents included members of the knowledge brokerage community of practice (CoP). Data analysis allowed presenting a first portrait of the profile of knowledge brokers working in health