Understanding university technicians’ role in creating knowledge exchange routines and capabilities: a research agenda

Abstract

AbstractKnowledge exchange (KE) is becoming a strategic imperative for universities globally. Research examining KE has tended to focus on a limited and select group of stakeholders. This paper builds on calls for a wider consideration of KE activities and other contributors to the KE agenda. The technical community is one such group that has received little attention or acknowledgement of their part in KE. We argue that the technical community makes a significant yet overlooked contribution to a broad array of KE activities. Technicians are problem solvers that often undertake work that their academic counterparts could not do—as users and managers of complex equipment to enable innovation. To date the literature provides limited understanding of the technician’s role and a lack of conceptualization of the contribution of technicians in KE. Adopting a micro-foundation approach, we present a conceptual framework which draws on the multi-level categories of individuals, processes and structures. We take a broader perspective of KE by including activities such as working with external businesses, enabling access to facilities and providing analysis, and contributing to public engagement and training. By synthesizing contemporary research with recent policy work we reveal the potential contribution of technician’s talent, know-how and boundary spanning activities. We conclude with a structured agenda and conceptual framework to help guide future research, showing how investigating the integration of individual, process and structural factors affecting technicians can help reveal new insights into KE capability development at the university level.