In this Cochrane Community blog Karen Head from Cochrane’s Knowledge Translation department discusses the start of the second cohort of the Cochrane KT mentoring scheme.
Whether it be prioritising review topics, involving end-users in producing Cochrane reviews, disseminating evidence or supporting decision makers to be able to find and use Cochrane evidence, – two brains are often better than one!
Mentoring for knowledge translation is a way of matching people who have knowledge translation projects or activities in Cochrane with people who have experience of delivering KT projects. An initial pilot study complete in 2020 identified that it was a helpful way of building knowledge translation knowledge and confidence.
In November 2020, 17 new pairs of mentors and mentees from across the world started out on their Cochrane knowledge translation mentoring journey.
A global cohort
The 34 mentee and mentor participants come from 18 different countries across 6 continents. We are still working on Antarctica! We are delighted that this time we have included three pairs who will be completing the mentoring in languages other than English.
The mentees
Participating mentees across from Cochrane group types with Review Groups and Review Group Networks, Geographic groups and Cochrane authors all represented.
The mentors
We were delighted with the response to the applications for KT mentors. The mentors include people already working with Cochrane, but also seven who have knowledge translation experience outside Cochrane, providing an opportunity to learn from knowledge translation experts from other organisations. We were also delighted to welcome back four of the mentors from the pilot scheme.
What next?
Mentoring will run for the next four to six months. In June we will complete a short evaluation of the scheme in order to plan our next steps.
If you are interested in this or any of our other Knowledge Translation work, please get in touch! Khead@cochrane.org