This presentation was made in the morning of 3 April 2018 at a meeting of NWO-WOTRO SURe project partners at NWO in The Hague, The Netherlands

1. ‹#› Het begint met een idee
AN UNUSUAL SUSPECT:
The private sector in knowledge
brokering in international development
Barbara Regeer, Suzanne Kiwanuka and Sarah
Cummings
SURe Exchange Meeting, 3 April 2018

2. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 Two presentations (morning and afternoon)
 This presentation
> Recap: rationale and research questions
> Activities
> The systematic review
1 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
OVERVIEW

3. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 Considerable amount of research on knowledge brokering in the
field of international development: research, policy and practice
 Private sector is seen as an important actor in development
because of potential to scale up and effectivity, reflected in SDGs
 The ‘private sector’ is often viewed as a cluster of homogenous
actors but it is enormously diverse
 Emphasis on theory of change and networks
 Five knowledge platforms are interacting with diverse private
sector actors
 But not much research on knowledge brokering with the private
sector
2 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
RECAP 1: RATIONALE

4. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 What is the current and potential role of the private
sector in knowledge brokering in international
development?
 How can the challenges and lessons from the actual and
potential role of the private sector be implemented to
improve the role of the private sector?
 To what extent is the concept of social capital able to
facilitate new insights on knowledge brokering with the
private sector?
3 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
RECAP 2: RESEARCH QUESTIONS

5. ‹#› Het begint met een idee
5 Het begint met een idee
 Currently focused on the
literature review
 Unusual suspect website
www.unusualsuspect.org
 3 blogs and 20 tweets
 ‘Popular’ article on The Broker
 A paper on ‘The future of
knowledge brokering’
 UN KM network discussion on
the the role of the private sector
with World Bank and IFC
 Paper on the protocol
4 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unudual Suspectesentation
ACTIVITIES

6. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
5 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
THE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW: SEARCH STRATEGY

7. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 Changed search strategy which was not sensitive and was
picking 12000 plus articles
 Search strategies
( ( "knowledge broker" OR "Knowledge brokering" OR "Think
tanks" OR Broker of knowledge OR “Knowledge
intermediaries”) AND ( europe OR africa ) )
 Data bases: Web of science, SCOPUS, Google scholar,
Academic Search, African Journals Online
 First 20 articles were screened independently by SC and SK
- yielded 90% agreement
6 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
REVISED SEARCH STRATEGY

8. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 WoS was accessible for complex search strategy
 Google Scholar was complex to use with our search terms:
scanned first 20 pages of results
 First 20 articles were screened independently by SC and
SK. Yielded 90% agreement.
 The rest were screened by both (50% each).
 40 articles were relevant- 23 not sure (all to be retrieved as
full articles)
7 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
THE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW: METHODOLOGY

9. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 Of the 40 relevant papers retrieved in the search only 10
are relevant (not sure not yet retrieved)
 Papers were read and re-read before extracting major
themes onto a template
 Template captures information on private sector
practices, processes, facilitators and barriers
 Most literature focuses on linking academia, policy and
practice
8 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
THE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW: METHODOLOGY

10. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 Focus on the corporate sector, financial institutions and
small and medium enterprises, excluding cooperatives,
social entrepreneurs and farmers (OECD-AECID)
 Private sector activities in knowledge brokering are
broad: linking, information, management, capacity
building, funding, facilitating and evaluating (Glegg and
Hoens 2016)
 Role of social capital: vertical and horizontal networks,
trust and personal relationships
9 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
THE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW: METHODOLOGY

11. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
 Included articles are recent, possibly an indication of the
recent interest in knowledge brokering and the private
sector.
 Growing attention on private sector knowledge-focused
enterprises in LMICs, such as think tanks
 There is a dearth of scientific literature on the role of the
private sector in knowledge brokering
 In the selected literature, private sector is mentioned in
passing rather than analysed closely
 UN organizations recognize that development capacity is
now located in LMICs
10 Faculty of Science / Athena Institute / An Unusual Suspect
THE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW: MAIN FINDINGS