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Background:
Despite the growing interest in knowledge brokering as an approach to mobilising knowledge for societal benefit, research has only recently begun investigating the consequences of knowledge brokers' actions. In particular, while it is known that failure can provide a valuable learning experience for individuals and organisations alike, very few studies have explored failure in knowledge brokering.


Aims and objectives:
With the aim of informing how knowledge brokers can navigate common professional challenges, this article discusses a spectrum of reasons for failure in the professional practice of knowledge brokering.


Methods:
Data for this article comes from a developmental evaluation of a network of knowledge brokers, focusing specifically on a set of semi-structured interviews (N = 20).


Findings:
The overarching themes identified in this study are organised according to the three constructs that knowledge brokers act upon in the i-PARIHS framework: innovation, recipients, and context. Knowledge brokers experienced different types of failure across these constructs, ranging from violations of prescribed practices and processes to exploratory testing.


Discussion and conclusions:
Failure is not a monolithic outcome, and future research could seek to identify levers for change regarding the failure experiences available to knowledge brokers. Additionally, it will not be enough to learn to fail; research and practice in knowledge brokering must learn to fail intelligently. Finally, failure cannot remain a private experience. Advancing the field of knowledge brokering will require researchers and practitioners to share when and how their efforts have failed.

Background:Interest in using arts-informed approaches within research to increase stakeholder engagement is growing; however, there is little work describing how these approaches are operationalised across contexts. This article addresses that gap by exploring the use of arts-informed approaches across three projects.
Aims and objectives:We explore how conceptualising research and evaluation as creative endeavours, particularly in arts-informed approaches to co-production, create opportunities to move knowledge into action (knowledge mobilisation). We propose an actionable configuration of context + mechanism = outcome (CMO) to understand the influence of arts-informed approaches to co-production.
Methods:Multi-case design and cross-case synthesis was conducted of three studies that used arts-informed approaches. A common focus across our cases was evidence use in the K-12 education sector; however, each engaged with this focus by involving different types of evidence and sets of education stakeholders.
Findings:Arts-informed approaches and co-production were influenced by a variety of contextual factors such as relationships between researchers and stakeholders, ethical issues of collaborative research activities, approaches to meaningful stakeholder engagement, co-production of knowledge, capacity-building support and resources, and communication between multi-stakeholder partners. Outcomes included new ways of thinking about research topics based on arts-informed approaches, more positive attitudes about co-production, more relevant and useful research and evaluation findings, and increased openness to future co-productive work.
Discussion and conclusions:Four propositions arising from this article include: (1) arts-informed approaches address context specificity and sensitivity; (2) arts-informed approaches promote engagement; (3) arts-informed approaches enhance and intertwine skills; (4) arts-informed approaches broaden thinking about impact.