Knowledge Mobilization to
Make Research Matter

The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is a leader in making homelessness research accessible, paving the way for the adoption of new policies, services, and practices.

Our Research to Impact Cycle

We believe knowledge mobilization involves collaborative research practices that draw on our partners’ various strengths and expertise. Our Research to Impact Cycle takes a design thinking approach to knowledge mobilization and consists of four mutually reinforcing components that maximize impact.

1. Exploration

Informed by engagement with project partners, including people with lived experience of homelessness, a knowledge synthesis gap analysis is necessary to identify, adapt, and mobilize knowledge on effective and innovative policy and program interventions.

Our program of research, guided by five thematic areas, aims to generate new insights on the prevention of homelessness.

Leveraging the success of the Homeless Hub and our expertise in knowledge dissemination and public outreach, we make emerging practices accessible to service providers, policy makers, and public sectors that impact homelessness. To facilitate uptake, researchers and community partners participate in outreach and relational engagement strategies with key audiences to share knowledge and learnings.

Our ability to scale innovative policies and practices is a key measure of impact. We are guided by the McConnell Foundation’s process of scaling up to change institutions, policy, and law, scaling out to replicate innovations in different communities, and scaling deep to produce a cultural shift by transforming hearts and minds towards desired change. Our full implementation strategy involves broadening our outreach and engagement on effective, prevention-based programs and interventions.

Our Knowledge Mobilization Tools

Knowledge Dissemination

The Homeless Hub is one of our greatest tools for knowledge mobilization. With over 1 million visitors each year, the Homeless Hub houses over 30,000 resources, making it the largest homelessness research library in the world.

Building Capacity in the Sector

We support knowledge uptake and early adoption through training and technical assistance provided by our community partners and peer-to-peer learning through our free professional development platform, the Homelessness Learning Hub.

A Note on Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

We acknowledge the necessity of grounding our work in the experiences of marginalized populations, not only as subjects of research, but through an inclusionary and anti-racism approach to ensure marginalized populations co-produce solutions to homelessness. This means meaningful engagement in knowledge mobilization from inception to completion to enhance the relevance and applicability of resulting knowledge developed to marginalized populations.