Mentoring in Sherwood Forest: Seeing the Wood for the Trees in a Knowledge Exchange Project

Abstract

Sherwood Forest is a mosaic of heritage, habitats and stakeholder relations. Scheme Manager, Steve Little, and Senior Lecturer in Museum Studies, Charlie Gregson, share their story of developing a working methodology in this complex landscape. By evaluating their relationship through the lenses of knowledge brokering and collaborative mentoring, they identify six themes relating to how their working environment evolved and functioned. Discussion finds significant overlap between collaborative mentoring, KE and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals in their ability to enable more nuanced and holistic changemaking that is contextualized in a deep understanding of need.

Knowledge brokering, a process by which an individual (or an organization) supports the transfer of research evidence into policy and practice, can improve evidence-based decision-making through knowledge exchange (KE) but is, on the whole, poorly defined in academia (Cvitanovic et al., 2017). This chapter seeks to contribute to the ‘necessary and urgent’ need for evaluation of KE in practice (Rycroft-Smith, 2022) by providing edited snippets of dialogue, analysis and key learning points. It is intended as inspiration and encouragement for academics, professionals, students and volunteers developing human-centric projects or design-thinking methodologies between universities and external partners.

Citation

Gregson, C. and Little, S. (2023), "Mentoring in Sherwood Forest: Seeing the Wood for the Trees in a Knowledge Exchange Project", Blaj-Ward, L. (Ed.) Mentoring Within and Beyond Academia, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 77-98. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-565-520231005