Knowledge Mobilization: How to Show Your Research Reached People

The end-of-grant report is due in three weeks. One box asks what happened to your findings outside academia, and you are digging through two-year-old emails trying to remember how many people came to the community workshop. You know the work reached people. You just cannot show it.

Funders ask this question twice: up front, as a plan, and at the end, as evidence. The useful trick is to treat them as one document. Write the plan so it tells you what to count, then count as you go.

What the Funders Actually Ask

The names differ; the question is the same: who outside your field will hear about this work, and how will you know? What follows is accurate at the time of writing (October 2026), so check the live pages before you submit.

SSHRC: knowledge mobilization

SSHRC's guidelines for effective knowledge mobilization call it "an umbrella term encompassing a wide range of activities relating to the production and use of research results", from synthesis and dissemination to co-production with knowledge users. Most SSHRC applications include a mandatory Knowledge Mobilization module, and the guidelines ask four questions even when the audience is strictly academic: who benefits, which audiences will be involved (when and how), how both sides benefit, and how best to communicate with them.

Two details are easy to miss. SSHRC asks applicants to develop indicators at the outset of the project, with examples such as citation indicators, newsletter or blog subscribers, and policy recommendations adopted. It also encourages dissemination in both official languages where feasible, and in the language of the community where the research takes place.

CIHR: knowledge translation

CIHR's guide to knowledge translation planning distinguishes integrated KT, which applies knowledge translation principles to the whole research process, from end-of-grant KT, which "covers any activity aimed at diffusing, disseminating or applying the results of a research project." An end-of-grant plan addresses five factors: goals, the knowledge-user audience, strategies, expertise and resources.

The guide names two typical goals, raising awareness and promoting action, and lists strategies from conference talks and open access publications to plain-language summaries, media releases and workshops. It also recommends revisiting the plan during and after the project as results evolve.

NSF: broader impacts

In the US, NSF's broader impacts page defines them as "the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes", and lists public engagement with STEM among its examples. Among the criteria reviewers apply: "Does the plan incorporate a mechanism to assess success?"

After the award, NSF's reporting page says annual reports cover broader impacts work, and a Project Outcomes Report of no more than 800 words, written for a public audience, is posted publicly by NSF exactly as submitted.

What Your Plan Should Name

Whatever your funder calls it, a plan you can actually run names five things:

• Audiences. Specific groups, not "the public": ward managers at three Ontario hospitals, a provincial policy team, a patient group, high school science teachers.
• Formats. What each audience will open: a two-page brief, a plain-language summary, a short video, material in French for a francophone partner.
• Channels. Where each format goes: a partner's newsletter, the lab website, LinkedIn, a conference screen.
• Timing. Activities tied to milestones, not just "end of project": a first meeting at the start, materials when the paper is accepted, a follow-up a few months later.
• Who does it. A named person and a budget line. CIHR lists expertise and resources as planning factors for a reason.

SSHRC also notes that successful projects often use more than one outreach medium.

What Evidence of Reach Looks Like

SSHRC separates outputs (short-term results such as publications, presentations and event attendees), outcomes (such as the number of people in target audiences who use the findings) and impacts (long-term changes in thinking and behaviour). Reach evidence mostly sits in the first two:

• Reads and downloads: views of a summary page, repository downloads of the free version.
• Listens and views: plays of an audio brief or video.
• Languages: which language versions were opened, which matters if you promised bilingual or community-language dissemination.
• Questions: what people asked about the work.
• Invitations: talks, workshops and advisory requests that came because of the work.
• Media and policy: coverage, mentions by partners, citations in reports or policy documents.

Pair every number with a line of context. "412 listens" says more as "412 listens, mostly from the two partner newsletters".

Collect It as You Go

Most reach evidence takes a minute to capture the week it happens and is nearly impossible to reconstruct two years later. A light routine:

1. Set your indicators when you write the plan, and decide where each number will come from.
2. Keep one shared log with the date, activity, audience, format, numbers and a link.
3. Save the proof: the invitation email, the newsletter issue, a screenshot of the dashboard.
4. Snapshot your analytics monthly so the record survives a lost login.
5. Tell your program officer about big moments as they happen; NSF says not to wait for the annual report to share significant broader impacts accomplishments.

At report time you copy from the log. SSHRC requires every funding recipient to submit an end of grant report on outcomes and impact, and the same log feeds NSF's public outcomes report.

Where Amplify Fits

Formats are usually the bottleneck: each audience needs something it will open. Amplify makes four from one paper: an audio brief in English with 21 more languages on request (22 in total, including French), a one-page print-ready infographic, a 45 to 60 second vertical short, and a video abstract of about 3 minutes. Everything is generated from your PDF alone, carries the title, authors and a link to the paper of record, and goes out only once you approve it.

The second half is evidence. Embed the formats on your lab site, a partner page or a conference microsite with the widget, and Amplify's analytics record reads, listens, questions asked, languages and which format moved people. That is useful evidence for a knowledge mobilization section or a broader-impacts report, alongside the indicators your funder names, gathered as it happens rather than reconstructed at report time.

Start the Log on Day One

Name your audiences, give each one a format it will open, and start the log the day the grant starts. When the report comes due, the evidence will already be there.

See how Amplify turns one paper into reach you can report