Wrapping up the 2025 KxM Research to Impact Fellowship

This spring, we wrapped up the inaugural KxM Research to Impact Fellowship, a new UBC initiative designed to build capacity among early-career researchers to mobilize knowledge effectively across academic, policy, nonprofit, and community settings. This intensive program was co-developed by the UBC Knowledge Exchange Unit in partnership with UBC’s Knowledge Exchange and Mobilization (KxM) Scholars. 

This highly selective and competitive program welcomed a cohort of 20 outstanding graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from across UBC. Representing disciplines including Medicine, Education, Land and Food, Applied Sciences, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Arts, and more, each Fellow brought a unique perspective to the shared goal of increasing the societal impact of research.

Over the course of seven weeks, Fellows engaged in an immersive blend of in-person workshops, asynchronous learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and mentorship. Together, they contributed more than 50 hours of rigorous, hands-on learning — all while responding to a real-world knowledge mobilization challenge identified by our community partner, Foundry BC.

At the heart of this year’s Fellowship was the challenge to strengthen how research evidence is used across Foundry’s provincial office and network of youth service centres. With guidance from our UBC KxM Scholars and dedicated mentors — Jasmin Ma, Michelle Stack, Sandra Lauck, and Barbara Lee — Fellows worked in pods to co-develop strategic knowledge mobilization plans tailored to Foundry’s priorities. These plans featured partnership mapping, communication strategies, evaluation frameworks, and practical tools to bridge research and practice.

"This course was an amazing experience. I loved the focus on learning practical skills, that I can immediately put into practice in my work. It was very engaging to learn about the different considerations and aspects of KxM through hearing about different experiences of experts in the field - it helped to place the course content in real world contexts. Overall, the course was so well designed and the Kx team members created a really supportive learning environment. I'm really looking forward to staying in touch with everyone in the community of practice."  - Annabel Chapman (2025 KxM Fellow)

Check out our photos from the Pitch Event and the Intensive week (click on the photo to advance)

The program culminated in a live pitch event, where teams presented their proposals to a panel of knowledge mobilization experts, scholars, and sector partners. Each team brought forward thoughtful, dynamic, and actionable ideas:

Pod A: Designed a framework to evaluate Foundry’s integrated KxM processes and outcomes
Pod B: Proposed a revitalized Champion Program using a point-to-point system to localize research use
Pod C: Developed a youth-led podcast to share research across Foundry sites (this year’s winning pitch!)
Pod D: Piloted the concept of a Youth Knowledge Collective to embed youth voices in KxM efforts

"The KxM fellowship was truly life-changing. I learned so much in such a short amount of time. It's hard to believe this was the program’s first year - everything ran so smoothly, and each session was so thoughtfully planned. I really hope there will be more programs like this in the future run by your team at the Kx Unit."  - Vanessa Fong (2025 KxM Fellow)

Throughout the program, Fellows demonstrated curiosity, commitment, and a strong capacity for applied research. Along the way, they developed a wide range of transferable skills, including:

• Collaborative project design
• Research communication for non-academic audiences
• Rapid literature synthesis, appraisal, and interpretation
• Partnership development and engagement
• Implementation planning and evaluation
• Application of EDIA (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) principles in knowledge mobilization

We are incredibly proud of what this first cohort has accomplished — and deeply grateful to our community partner Foundry BC, mentors, facilitators, and guest judges who made this experience possible. The energy, creativity, and care each Fellow brought to the program reflects the kind of leadership needed to move research into action. We’re so excited to see such thoughtful, practice-ready approaches from emerging KxM leaders, and we can’t wait to see how they continue to shape the future of knowledge mobilization across sectors!